Snr Sgt Sonny Kappel Jakobsen & Captain Christian Jørgen Grundt DamholtDenmark lost another two soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday. Mere days after Danmarks Radio was clever enough to air a TV programme showing how Danish troops were lightly armoured when on humanitarian missions, a suicide bomber took the opportunity to become a martyr by attacking just such a mission. Serendipity for the mujahideen or just a coincidence? He wounded several Danish soldiers and killed two of them in the town of Gereshk. Today DR has the story on its news page under the heading 'Random killing of Danish soldiers', and quotes the Danish commander of the forces on the ground, Colonel Jens Lønborg as saying the attack was probably a random event and not especially aimed at Danish troops in particular. I wonder if Colonel Lønborg is even aware that just a few days ago DR was demonstrating what easy targets the Danish troops were in Afghanistan when not on actual combat missions... I doubt it.
Naturally, DR does not take any rsponsibility for having broadcast the vulnerability of Danish troops to any one who happened to be watching. I don't supose the thought that there might be Islamic extremists in Danmark ever occured to them. No doubt they assume these people are not well connected with their spiritual brethern in Afghanistan at all. I'd be surprised if they'd even thought about the implications of telling the world about when the Danish troops were most vulnerable.
In the mean while, Mærsk (Denmark and the worlds biggest shipping company) has come under criticism for having paid a ransom for the release of one of their ships.
Puntland's Fisheries Minister Ahmed Said Aw-Nur told the BBC the British captain, Irish engineer and four Russian crew on board were safe. But he condemned the fact that a ransom was paid to secure their release."It can only encourage piracy," he told the BBC Somali Service.
[snip]
Mr Aw-Nur said that he suspected Puntland security officials were working in collusion with the pirates.
The Svitzer Korsakov (pictured above) was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia (an area which the Danish navy, along side our allies, is supposed to be keeping clear of pirates). Quite why Mærsk should be criticized is beyond me. Apparently, the local authority's believe paying a randsom to get your ship and its crew back is a bad thing, whilst pirating is all good. Odd how we never hear a peep out of the local authorities when these so called 'pirates' seize our ships, or the ships sent to the region with food and medical aid.Ynsha Allah as they probably say down there.
2 comments:
I was in a good mood until I read that post. I'm so mad right now that I can hardly type. Television shows broadcasting mission critical intel, that is openly exploited by the enemy! Heck. At what point is a person a traitor? Maybe I'll comment later when I'm thinking better.
My blog is starting to resemble a cemetary.
With regards to DR and the media, whats to say? It could be a coincidence as the Danish commander on the ground says, or it could be he doesn't even know that his men were deisplayed as easy targets only a few days before they were hit.
I don't know but I smell a rat.
I've not been pleased with the left leaning DR of late though, so I'm probably biased.
I'd like to see the military commandmake a statement on this but so far, no one seems to have noticed the connection. I saw the original program on TV, which was presented as 'our boys helping the locals'. DR made a big deal about how the Danish troops could relax when they weren't fighting the Taliban, about how easy going other parts of Afghanistan were and how little armour the soldiers needed to wear on humanitarian mission. I got annoyed and I said to Mette at the time, that we should not be surpsied to hear of an attack against those troops in the next few days.
Thats exactly what happened. Two or three days later a Danish humanitarian mission got hit by a 'random suicide attack'.
These were the first Danish soldiers ever killed by a suicide bomber.
I can't know for sure, but I think DR fucked us up.
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