AFGHANISTAN

[reality]

owned and managed my own business there for 20 years , employed up to 60 people at one time

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

BS on steriods

And how did your workers deal with your constant abuse?

They were going to kill him
so he got scared and left the country

[reality]

Abbott pays tribute to SAS soldier

4:58 PM Saturday Aug 20, 2011

Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott has paid tribute to the New Zealand special forces soldier killed in a Taleban attack in Kabul.

Mr Abbott has spoken of the heroism of the Special Air Service (SAS) soldier, who is yet to be named, who was among nine people killed overnight in a raid on Britain's cultural centre in the Afghan capital.

"There's been another death in action in Afghanistan, not an Australian soldier but one of our trans-Tasman brothers ... who died heroically trying to rescue hostages in Kabul," he told reporters after addressing the State Liberal conference in Adelaide on Saturday.

"I just want to say on behalf of the coalition, our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of New Zealand at this moment.

"And I am sure the thoughts and prayers of every Australian is with our friends in New Zealand at this sad time."

Militants blasted their way into the British Council's Kabul compound before dawn on Friday, blowing up a car bomb at the gates and then detonating a second device.

At least four Taleban suicide bombers got inside, unleashing a series of explosions as foreign and Afghan forces engaged in fierce gunbattles for the next nine hours until all of the insurgents were killed.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has confirmed the soldier's death, but said he knew little of the circumstances.

"On behalf of the Government, I want to offer my condolences to the family of the soldier," he said.

Expressing his appreciation, British Prime Minister David Cameron thanked Mr Key for the role New Zealand's special forces had played in ending the raid.

It was the latest high-profile strike to underline fragile security in the Afghan capital as US-led Nato combat troops start leaving Afghanistan. They are all due to withdraw by the end of 2014.

A spokeswoman for Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith later said Mr Smith had spoken with his New Zealand counterpart, Defence Minister Wayne Mapp, to express the Australian Government's condolences at the loss.

[AnFaolchudubh]

owned and managed my own business there for 20 years , employed up to 60 people at one time

Ahh now the truth comes out... just a soft skin business owner, so you've never actually done a descent days hard work then?... sorry old stick, being a boss for twenty years doesn't count.

[reality]

a boss who leads from the sharp end boyo...being a socialist ..you wouldn't understand about business

[AnFaolchudubh]

a boss who leads from the sharp end boyo...being a socialist ..you wouldn't understand about business

You do know that sitting on your chair dictating to the workers is not leading from the sharp end... or did you mean that you're like a gorse spine.

What part of own my own business did you not understand?

Haha socialist... me... not bloody likely canonseat!

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Name of dead soldier released

By IMOGEN NEALE, TIM DONOGHUE and DANYA LEVY - The Dominion Post | 10:48AM - Monday, 22 August 2011


DOUG GRANT: The New Zealand Defence Force has confirmed that the SAS soldier killed
in a firefight in Afghanistan was Doug Grant.

THE New Zealand SAS soldier killed in Afghanistan has been named as Doug Grant, a Linton-based father of two.

Corporal Grant, 41, died after being shot in the chest while he and about 15 other New Zealand troops attempted to free hostages following a Taleban attack at the British Council diplomatic offices on Friday (New Zealand time).

He was married with a seven-year-old daughter and five-year-old son.

In a statement, Grant's family said he knew what he was going into in Afghanistan and did not make a big deal about his achievements.

"Some might wonder why Doug went into harm's way; Doug had absolute faith in his friends and colleagues, and what he was doing in Afghanistan."

"He understood what he was getting into and believed in the goal of training local forces for that country's future."

The family was incredibly proud of his achievements, including being a soldier, and said he died doing one of the things he loved. They asked for privacy.

Grant had been in Kabul for only a short time, although it was not his first tour of duty in Afghanistan.

He served in the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, Royal New Zealand Engineers and the SAS. As well as his two tours of Afghanistan, he had served twice in East Timor and once in the Former Yugoslavia.

Grant is being brought back to New Zealand in a commercial plane. A private commemoration will be held in Auckland and then he will be taken to Linton military base for a service.

Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said "the highest price has been paid" with Grant's death.

"Our SAS are resourceful, resilient and resolute."

Grant died protecting lives and "for that we should be grateful", Mapp said.

Prime Minister John Key visited the soldier's widow on Saturday.

Mapp reiterated that the 35 New Zealand SAS soldiers would not come home before March. He would not comment on whether troops would be redeployed after March.

OPERATION DETAILS

Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Rhys Jones said the New Zealand SAS had been given the task to rescue hostages.

Grant had climbed onto the roof of a building next to the council offices, where he was shot with what is believed to have been a rifle or light machine gun.

The bullet entered through his armpit, went through his heart and out the other side.

He was the evacuated by medics but, in hindsight, he never would have recovered from his injuries, Jones said.

There was discussion about whether to cancel the transfer to hospital, but he still had a pulse.

"We are confident that the protection we have ... is world class," Jones said.

The SAS was a very tight unit which needed to keep out of the public eye so opponents did not learn its tactics.

Jones said forces were still adequate to train the Afghanistan's Crisis Response Unit.

Related stories:

• On patrol with NZ soldiers in Afghanistan

• Key defends SAS combat role

MORE FIREFIGHTS LIKELY

The New Zealand SAS are taking lead combat roles in Kabul and will probably find themselves in more firefights similar to that in which a Kiwi soldier was killed.

The international community is lobbying New Zealand to keep the SAS in Kabul, where the elite soldiers are mentors to the Afghan Crisis Response Unit.

The flag-draped coffin of the elite soldier began its journey back to New Zealand late last night when it was met at Bagram Airbase by Bamiyan provincial reconstruction team chief military officer Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh McAslan.

His SAS comrades performed a moving haka as his body was loaded on to a military Hercules aircraft.

The incident on Friday night showed that the Kiwi elite troops increasingly took the lead combat role in Kabul in their capacity as mentors, strategic analyst and political scientist Paul Buchanan said yesterday.

A former British ambassador to Kabul is heading to New Zealand to lobby Defence Minister Wayne Mapp. It is understood that Mark Sedwill, director-general (Afghanistan and Pakistan) at the British Foreign Office, will urge the Government to keep its forces in Afghanistan when he holds secret talks on Wednesday and Thursday.

Prime Minister John Key yesterday said that "a number" of other countries had offered to take over the SAS' role in Kabul "if we came home".

Dr Buchanan said the SAS' supposed role of "mentoring" the Afghan Crisis Response Unit in Kabul hid the truth about their work. "Mentoring in the counter-terrorism business means entering into combat."

The "strange part" was that, when the Government deployed the SAS in 2009, it told the public that the troops would not be in combat roles and would not be the first in during a terrorist crisis.

"What they would do is train these Afghans and that they, if necessary, would accompany them into situations but allow the Afghans to take the lead ... What we've discovered now is that [the SAS] take the lead — they're the first guys through the door and the reason is, you have to lead by example."

"I find it a little strange that the Government didn't admit upfront from the point they deployed [that] this is what they were going to do."

Dr Buchanan said the tempo of the Taleban's urban terrorist operation had increased now that the United States had announced that it was going to withdraw its troops, and people could expect to see more incidents such as Friday's.

"The Taleban are supremely motivated, fighting in their own country and prepared to die." Greens defence spokesman Keith Locke said Mr Key's comments about other countries being prepared to take on the Kiwis' role lent weight to calls to withdraw the SAS now. Kabul was "clearly more dangerous" and the reasons for keeping the SAS there were "largely symbolic".

Mr Key said the soldier's body was likely to be sent to Hawaii, where it would be collected by an Air Force Boeing 757.

"That would be the appropriate thing and we'll send some people up to accompany him home."

SAS in Afghanistan

First deployed to Afghanistan in 2001.

The former Labour government pulled the unit out in 2005 after three deployments.

About 70 troops were sent back by the National Government for a fourth deployment in 2009.

About 35 SAS troops are based in Kabul, where their main role is ostensibly to mentor and train the Afghan Crisis Response Unit.

They are scheduled to return to New Zealand in March next year, although no final decision has been made.

Related story:

• Arrival of soldiers a sign of Afghan peace

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/5482193/Name-of-dead-soldier-released

[Crusader]

Whilst I believe our role over there is a waste of time, everyone who goes there is a volunteer and do so because that is what they want to do with their life. The Government does not force them to go. Most of us won't die doing the thing we love. At least he gets to. RIP.

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Yeah he wanted to go but its a rough on his wife and kids

[AnFaolchudubh]

Yeah he wanted to go but its a rough on his wife and kids

It is but (and I hate to sound calious) is it anymore rough than if he'd died in a car accident or a terminal illlness?

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

True I guess everyone has their time to die

[reality]

Al-Qaida 'No 2' killed in Pakistan: US
7:38 AM Sunday Aug 28, 2011
Since killing Osama bin Laden in May, US officials have said that al-Qaida's leader ship has been in disarray. Photo / APAl-Qaida's second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed in Pakistan, delivering another big blow to a terrorist group that the US believes to be on the verge of defeat, US officials said.

Since Navy SEALs stormed Osama bin Laden's compound and killed him in May, the Obama administration has been unusually frank in its assessment that al-Qaida is on the ropes, its leadership in disarray. defence Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that al-Qaida's defeat was within reach if the US could mount a string of successful attacks.

"Now is the moment, following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them," Panetta said, "because I do believe that if we continue this effort we can really cripple al-Qaida as a major threat."

A Libyan national, al-Rahman never had the worldwide name recognition of bin Laden or bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. But al-Rahman was regarded as an instrumental figure in the terrorist organisation, trusted by bin Laden to oversee al-Qaida's daily operations.

When the SEALs raided bin Laden's compound, they found evidence of al-Rahman's deep involvement in running al-Qaida. Senior al-Qaida figures have been killed before, only to be replaced. But the Obama administration's tenor reflects a cautious optimism that victory in the decade-long fight against al-Qaida could be at hand.

"It does hold the prospect of a strategic defeat, if you will, a strategic dismantling, of al-Qaida," incoming CIA Director David Petraeus said in July.

Since bin Laden's death, counterterrorism officials have hoped to capitalize on al-Qaida's unsettled leadership. The more uncertain the structure, the harder it is for al-Qaida to operate covertly and plan attacks.

Al-Zawahiri is running the group but is considered a divisive figure who lacks the founder's charisma and ability to galvanise al-Qaida's disparate franchises.

A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to summarize the government's intelligence on al-Rahman, said al-Rahman's death will make it harder for Zawahiri to oversee what is considered an increasingly weakened organisation.

"Zawahiri needed Atiyah's experience and connections to help manage al-Qaida," the official said.

Al-Rahman was killed Aug. 22 in the lawless Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan, according to a senior administration who also insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.

The official would not say how al-Rahman was killed. But al-Rahman's death came on the same day that a CIA drone strike was reported in Waziristan. Such strikes by unmanned aircraft are Washington's weapon of choice for killing terrorists in the mountainous, hard-to-reach area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Al-Rahman has been thought to be dead before. Last year, there were reports that al-Rahman was killed in a drone strike; neither US officials nor al-Qaida ever confirmed them. The officials who confirmed the death Saturday said it represented the consensus opinion of the US government.

Born in Libya, al-Rahman joined bin Laden as a teenager in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union.

He once served as bin Laden's personal emissary to Iran. Al-Rahman was allowed to move freely in and out of Iran as part of that arrangement and has been operating out of Waziristan for some time, officials have said.

- AP

...well done America

[AnFaolchudubh]

Hello, I see the kraken from across the ditch is awake!

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Yeah he wanted to go but its a rough on his wife and kids

It is but (and I hate to sound calious) is it anymore rough than if he'd died in a car accident or a terminal illlness?

Technically, it was a workplace fatality.

He was working and he was in his workplace and he died of unnatural causes.

Unfortunately, a large number of Kiwis die in their workplace every year of unnatural causes.

[AnFaolchudubh]

Yeah he wanted to go but its a rough on his wife and kids

It is but (and I hate to sound calious) is it anymore rough than if he'd died in a car accident or a terminal illlness?

Technically, it was a workplace fatality.

He was working and he was in his workplace and he died of unnatural causes.

Unfortunately, a large number of Kiwis die in their workplace every year of unnatural causes.

But possible/ probibal (sp) death is part of their job.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

A decade on, it's time to quit

Ten years into the war on terror, New Zealand's participation
seems worryingly tarnished and increasingly pointless.

By ANTHONY HUBBARD - Sunday Star-Times | 5:00AM - Sunday, 04 September 2011


CORRUPT: New Zealand's association with Hamid Karzai's crooked Afghanistan government — pictured
is Karzai meeting Foreign Minister Murray McCully in 2010 — has tainted our international standing.
 — Photo: REUTERS.

NEW ZEALAND should get out of Afghanistan. It has spent nearly 10 years there, the decade of the "war on terror". But the war in Afghanistan is no longer about terrorism. It is a bloody, messy civil war. We don't have a dog in that fight.

This war has been largely secret. Neither the government nor the military has wanted to say much about it, and for good reasons. We are fighting alongside the corrupt and brutal Karzai government. We have been tainted by our association with it, especially on the matter of torture.

The war is also unwinnable, as even New Zealand military leaders now admit. New Zealand has long since done its bit for its American patron. "We should declare it a victory," says retired Kiwi diplomat Terence O'Brien, "and go home."

Last week a lot of the secrecy about the war disappeared, with the publication of Nicky Hager's book Other People's Wars. The response of John Key and various retired military leaders was typical — they attacked the man and rubbished the book without reading it. The first casualty in war is reasoned argument.

The book reveals that only two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, an SAS intelligence analyst, Major Louisa Parkinson, had already spotted the trouble with invading Afghanistan.

"It will be very difficult to remove the Taliban from power, since there is no rigid, formal structure," she wrote.

"The Taliban is as much an idea as an entity and its influence extends beyond Afghanistan's borders — particularly into Pakistan."

The American-led invasion, of course, bombed the Taliban government to bits. But after 10 years of fighting, the Taliban still rules a large part of Afghanistan.

There was a case for attacking the Taliban government in 2001, because it sheltered the al Qaeda terrorists who murdered so many innocent people in New York. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan on those grounds. But Osama bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda has long since disappeared as an important force in Afghanistan.

Key justified the New Zealand involvement in Afghanistan as helping in the war against terror. There are certainly plenty of terrorists there, not just among the Taliban but among the fighters led by tribal leaders, war lords and the Karzai government. But they do not pose a threat to New Zealand or the West. The Taliban wants power in Afghanistan. It shows no sign of attacking us.

The official public discussion about the war is paltry. But in January the new New Zealand chief of defence force, Lieutenant-General Rhys Jones, made the surprising admission to the Sunday Star-Times that in Afghanistan "the military can never win ... What we are there for is to try to make life a little better and to stabilise it so that rational politics can go ahead."

Rational politics, he said, would include the Taliban. Nobody claimed, Jones said, that we can turn Afghanistan into a western democracy. Back-door negotiations are now taking place between the Americans and the Taliban, as newspapers reported last week. President Obama has said he wants American troops out by 2014. In other words, the United States has also given up the idea of a military victory over the Taliban.

It is deeply sad, O'Brien says, that the West will leave Afghanistan "not much better than when we went in there. But that is the way of the world".

So the government's main argument for involvement — that it is a war against terror — fails. The "good news" part of its message about the war seems almost as flawed. The government likes to present our Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamiyan province as providing "good works" and "nation-building". But this has been exaggerated.

A 2010 report on Bamiyan by NZAID, the official government body in charge of aid at that time, said: "The projects overseen by the [New Zealand Defence Force] through the PRT do not appear to be sustainable in any way and anecdotal evidence is that some have already failed."

It concluded that the defence force was "not an effective aid provider".

Defence, typically, tried to suppress these damning findings. These sentences were blanked out of the report released under the Official Information Act, on the spurious grounds that the information could prejudice "the security and defence of New Zealand".

Defence PR has always been ruthless in its pursuit of good news and its suppression of bad.

A secret defence report from 2003 showed that the military wanted to provide two key messages in talking about the PRT: "NZDF personnel are not going to war", and "The focus of this mission is reconstruction".

Defence has always had a PR advantage in the war. Most journalists who go there are embedded, that is, entirely under the care of the military. Their reports do not criticise their hosts. And the SAS's activities have always been shrouded in controversy.

However, controversy has arisen over the involvement of the SAS in taking prisoners who have been transferred to the Americans and Afghans and tortured.

Jerry Mateparae, the former defence force chief who was sworn in as governor-general this week, told the Sunday Star-Times on Thursday that he had "every confidence in the integrity of the New Zealand Special Air Service personnel and also the personnel in the Provincial Reconstruction team. I am confident in the decisions that I took as the chief of defence force and also the advice that I gave the government".

These bland and vague statements do nothing to settle the issue. And Jones himself said in January that transferred prisoners had been tortured. "We accept there will be times when, with hindsight, we will find, oops! This has occurred."

That is the trouble with the "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan. New Zealand has been fighting alongside a government which includes people who routinely torture. It has fought alongside American troops who have done the same.

The new book shows that plenty of Kiwi soldiers were unhappy about the attitude of the American troops. One SAS soldier said of the US Marines: "It's almost like they got given a licence to just be total dickheads and not think any longer about the value of human life."

New Zealand might have been justified in joining the invasion of Afghanistan. But 10 years later, everything has changed.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/opinion/5560475/A-decade-on-its-time-to-quit

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Some further reading for that Reality idiot.....


• Three Cheers for Nicky Hager: hip-hip ... hip-hip ... hip-hip

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Kabul attack ends after 20 hours

Reuters | 5:42PM - Wednesday, 14 September 2011


ATTACKS: Taleban fighters have fired rockets at the US
Embassy and Nato headquarters in Kabul.

AN ASSAULT by Taleban insurgents on the heart of Kabul's diplomatic and military enclave has ended after 20 hours, when security forces killed the last of six attackers, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said on Wednesday.

"The operation just ended and 6 terrorists were killed by police. Details on casualties will be announced later," spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter.

The insurgents had holed up in a multi-storey building still under construction and launched their attack early on Tuesday afternoon, firing rockets towards the U.S. and other embassies and the headquarters of Nato-led foreign forces.

Afghan security forces backed by Nato and Afghan attack helicopters fought Taleban insurgents floor-by-floor in the building in the longest sustained attack on the capital since the U.S.-led invasion a decade ago.

One or two fighters held out overnight in the high-rise building, site of the most spectacular of four coordinated attacks across the city. Suicide bombers had targeted police buildings in other parts of the city.

At least nine people were killed and 23 wounded in four attacks, and the ability of the Taleban to penetrate Kabul's vaunted was a clear show of strength ahead of a handover of security to Afghan forces slated for 2014.

A squad of insurgents were armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47 assault rifles and suicide bomb vests, a Taleban spokesman said, but the amount of time they held off foreign and Afghan troops prompted speculation they had weapons and ammunition hidden in the building before the attack.

Gunfire continued throughout the night, with residents of nearby buildings staying indoors with their lights off, as children panicked and helicopters flew low overhead.

"It would go silent for 30 to 35 minutes and then there were explosions and the sound of heavy machine guns," he said.

Explosions were interspersed with gunfire all afternoon on Tuesday and several rockets landed in the upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan district, near the British and other embassies. One hit a school bus but it appeared to have been empty at the time.

"There was almost certainly either a break-down in security among the Afghans with responsibility for Kabul or an intelligence failure," said Andrew Exum, fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

On the day the attack started, a U.S. Senate panel approved a $1.6 billion cut in projected U.S. funding for Afghan security forces, part of a significant reduction in outlays for training and equipping Afghan army and police expected in the coming years.

The U.S. and British embassies and the Nato-led coalition said all their employees were safe.

Violence is at its worst since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taleban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties.

The assault was the second big attack in the city in less than a month after suicide bombers targeted the British Council headquarters in mid-August, killing nine people.

In late June, insurgents launched an assault on a hotel in the capital frequented by Westerners, killing at least 10. But Tuesday's attack was even more ambitious.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/5625107/Kabul-attack-ends-after-20-hours

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

NZ SAS in Kabul fighting

Fairfax NZ and Reuters | 10:39PM - Wednesday, 14 September 2011


IN THE HEART OF THE CITY: Afghan police watch as a Nato
helicopter flies overhead during a battle with Taleban
insurgents who took over a building near the US
embassy in Kabul. — Photo: REUTERS.

ELITE New Zealand troops backed up Afghan forces during a 20 hour shoot out with Taliban insurgents in the Afghanistan capital, Kabul.

Nine insurgents were killed in the attack along with four Afghan policemen and at least two civilians.

A spokeswoman for Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said there were no New Zealand injuries.

She said SAS troops took a mentoring role throughout, advising the Afghan Crisis Response Unit (CRU) during the assault on the heavily-defended area around the United States Embassy and Nato headquarters.

But she could not rule out that the New Zealanders fired their weapons during the battle.

The attack was the boldest since the assault on the British Council last month in which 41-year-old NZ SAS soldier Corporal Doug Grant was killed.

The CRU led that engagement but called in the SAS when they were overwhelmed.

In July two SAS soldiers were injured after the CRU was forced to call for help to deal with an attack on the InterContinental Hotel.

FIGHTING FLOOR-BY-FLOOR

Afghan security forces backed by Nato and Afghan attack helicopters fought Taleban insurgents floor-by-floor in the building in the longest sustained attack on the capital since the US-led invasion a decade ago.

One or two fighters held out overnight in the high-rise building, site of the most spectacular of four coordinated attacks across the city. Suicide bombers had targeted police buildings in other parts of the city.

The ability of the Taleban to penetrate Kabul's vaunted was a clear show of strength ahead of a handover of security to Afghan forces slated for 2014.

A squad of insurgents were armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-47 assault rifles and suicide bomb vests, a Taleban spokesman said, but the amount of time they held off foreign and Afghan troops prompted speculation they had weapons and ammunition hidden in the building before the attack.

Gunfire continued throughout the night, with residents of nearby buildings staying indoors with their lights off, as children panicked and helicopters flew low overhead.

A Defence Force spokesman said the latest attack had not moved to one like the attacks on the British Council or the hotel.

"It would go silent for 30 to 35 minutes and then there were explosions and the sound of heavy machine guns," he said.

Explosions were interspersed with gunfire all afternoon on Tuesday (local time) and several rockets landed in the upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan district, near the British and other embassies. One hit a school bus but it appeared to have been empty at the time.

"There was almost certainly either a break-down in security among the Afghans with responsibility for Kabul or an intelligence failure," said Andrew Exum, fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

The US and British embassies and the Nato-led coalition said all their employees were safe.

Violence is at its worst since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taleban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/5625107/NZ-SAS-in-Kabul-fighting

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

NZ SAS soldier killed near Kabul

The Dominion Post | 1:51PM - Wednesday, 28 September 2011


John Key at the press conference delivering the news a New Zealand soldier was killed in Afghanistan.

A NEW ZEALAND SAS SOLDIER has been killed in Afghanistan.

He was shot in the head during an operation outside Kabul. He was rushed to surgery, but died on the operating table.

The Government has called an urgent press conference at Parliament, featuring Prime Minister John Key, Defence Minister Wayne Mapp and Defence Force Lieutenant General Rhys Jones.

Mr Key has confirmed a SAS soldier has been killed during the incident.

"I deeply regret the loss of our soldiers but I don't regret the commitment we've made to Afghanistan," he said.

He described the news as devastating and said the soldier paid the highest price.

The death would not alter New Zealand's commitment to operations in Afghanistan.

Mr Mapp offered his condolence to the soldier's family on "these most difficult of days".

Lieutenant General Jones said he could not give much detail about the operation, but said the team was engaged in executing a search warrant, under control of the Afghan Response Unit. The NZ SAS was playing a mentoring role, he said.

He said the name of the soldier would not be released for 24 hours to allow his wider family to be informed. His immediate family had been informed. The NZDF has confirmed the solider is not decorated SAS member Willie Apiata.

The soldier was killed during an exchange of rifle fire as they acted on information a group was preparing to launch an attack on Kabul.

Last month SAS soldier Doug Grant, 41, was killed after an attack by the Taleban at the British Council diplomatic offices.

Grant was killed in the country's capital, Kabul, helping save the lives of three British civilians and two Gurkha security guards.

Lieutenant Timothy Andrew O'Donnell, 28, was killed in August 2010.

He and two of his fellow soldiers were injured when their patrol was ambushed in the province of Bamiyan.

New Zealand troops were first deployed to Afghanistan in 2001.

The National-led Government redeployed the SAS to Kabul in 2009 and the troops are due to come home in March 2012.

New Zealand also has a peacekeeping unit, the Provincial Reconstruction Team, based in the Bamiyan province.

That unit has been in Bamiyan since 2003 and is due to pull out in September 2014.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/5698742/NZ-SAS-soldier-killed-near-Kabul

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Why are they sending our young people off to invade and die in a strange land?
Key should send his kid there...

[guest49]

First, my deep sympathy to the next of kin.

Secondly, its a rare occasion when I agree with Turia, but this is one.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said: "I'm not a great supporter of our soldiers fighting in countries where in fact I don't believe that we understand enough about the regimes that are running those countries.

"We're not politically aware of what the significant issues are there.

"I think there have been major issues in Afghanistan and I think it's time for us to review our role there."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5698604/Kiwi-soldier-killed-in-Afghanistan-PM-confirms

What we are doing in Afghanistan. is what us jokers in the trade know as "Pushing shit uphill."

No invader has succeeded in Afghanistan in the last two thousand years and that isnt going to change any time soon.
Good live-fire training, but achieving little beyond that.

[Crusader]

Why are they sending our young people off to invade and die in a strange land?
Key should send his kid there...

They are not forced to go. They all volunteer.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

They are not forced to go. They all volunteer.

Yep....they all volunteer to work in a workplace where bullets are flying around and they are shooting at other people who are shooting at them.

So it was just another workplace death today. Unfortunately we get way too many workplace deaths in NZ.

It's just that as this one wasn't actually in NZ, OSH won't be involved.





And as Yak says.....no invader has succeeded in Afghanistan in more than two thousand years and it will be no different this time.

Eventually, the foreigners will leave as the population of the countries they represent tire of the continual warmongering and the Teliban (who have been waiting patiently) will take over Afghanistan again. The foreigners will leave and take their dead with them and things will be back to square one. Just like after the Soviet Union got their arses kicked in Afghanistan. Just like the Poms got their arses kicked in Afghanistan. It's just that the current mob haven't yet woken up to the fact they aren't going to achieve anything in the long run except a shitload of dead bodies (their own....and Afghans), and a shitload of money poured down the drain.

Such is life, eh? 



Remember this scene?





You WILL eventually see a version of it again, but this time in Afghanistan!

[AnFaolchudubh]

Why are they sending our young people off to invade and die in a strange land?
Key should send his kid there...

1 as has been said they volunteer.
2 it's their job
and death is a reality in their line of work, i very much doubt that people join up not thinking that if as a soldier they could find themselves in a hostile environment. That'd be like someone becoming a fireman then say shit I didn't realise I had to fight fires