Please note that at the moment it is the Telegraph UK that is reporting it, our media hasn't gotten around to delving into the details yet, it seems.
The good news according to OUR media must always be countered by bad news, yet when writing the bad news our media rarely, if ever, feels that balance should go both ways to include the good news.
Media bias and those that claim it doesn't exist live in a fantasy world.
Back to the article, it seems our forces have become aggressive which has stalled the Talibans touted "spring offensive" against our coalition troops as shown in a planned ambush against our forces that went horribly wrong ....for the Taliban.
Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.
Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head.
As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.
By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand.
The mission is typical of a new, aggressive, approach adopted by American forces in southern Afghanistan and particularly in Helmand, where British troops last year bore the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
American commanders believe that the uncompromising use of airpower in recent weeks has been a key factor in preventing the Taliban from launching their expected full-scale spring offensive against coalition forces and forcing them to rethink their tactics.
Yeahhhhhhh!!!! Now THIS is what I am talking about.
Aircrews say they have been told to show no mercy, but to press home their advantage until all their targets have been destroyed. The Apache attack was one of five in three days in -Helmand, where British troops operate alongside a much smaller contingent of American infantry and special forces.
Capt Staley, the commander of the Apache unit based at Kandahar airfield, described how his helicopters had arrived just after an ambush by Taliban fighters with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, on a detachment of American special forces and an infantry unit. In the second Apache, 1st Lt Jack Denton, 26, was in radio contact with the special forces unit, Scorpion 36, on the ground.
The soldiers said they had information that the Taliban were escaping across the river. "Look out for any boats," they said. He spotted a small aluminium fishing boat pushing out from the eastern shore of the 200-yard-wide river. In it were six or seven people. When they caught sight of the Apaches, they started to paddle back towards shore.
Read the rest and make sure you listen to the video that accompanies this article.
In looking around the web for other writings about this I ran across this from EU Referendum, which really should be read but the money quote is this:
The Americans at least have come to terms with the objectives of fighting an insurgency. You do not negotiate with your enemies. You kill them.
Too bad Pelosi hasn't grasped that concept yet, if she had, she might not have made a complete ass of herself playing footise with al-Assad of Syria.
Exactly. It tooks too long but eventually we came to understand this and are acting on it.
It is called counterinsurgency and damn well should have been put into action in Afghanistan and Iraq well before now, but looking back helps no one and just keeps confusing the issues at hand NOW and this is the strategy that must continue whereever we are fighting al-Qaeda, the Taliban or any other enemy.
Chalk one up for our troops in Afghanistan.
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