All-Female Marine Team Conducts First Mission in Southern Afghanistan

By Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Monty Burton
Special to American Forces Press Service

FARAH PROVINCE, Afghanistan, March 10, 2009 – Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment -- the ground combat element of Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Afghanistan -- now have a special group of people to help them complete their mission in Afghanistan.

Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Johanna Shaffer shares a cookie and a smile with an Afghan child while under the watchful security of Marines assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, during her all-female team's first mission in Farah province, Feb. 9, 2009. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Monty Burton (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

The task force’s all-female Marine team is interacting with the Afghan female population in southern Afghanistan -- a task considered culturally unacceptable for the male Marines operating there.

A similar program has been used in combat operations in Iraq, but this is the first time Marine forces in Afghanistan have employed the concept, officials said.

Marine Corps Capt. Mike Hoffman, commanding officer of 3/8’s Company I, said the all-female team is an important asset for his Marines.

“[The team] provides us access to half of the population that we normally do not have access to,” Hoffman said. “They did extremely well interacting with the female villagers.”

Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Johanna Shaffer, the team leader, said their first mission, a cordon-and-search operation in support of Operation Pathfinder, was very successful.

“We were accepted by both the men and women villagers and were able to obtain valuable information about the way they lived and what they thought about the Marine Corps operating in the area,” Shaffer said.

During the mission, the female Marines donned brightly colored head and neck scarves as a sign of cultural respect to the Afghan women.

“The scarves showed the Afghan women that we were women too, and we respect their culture,” Shaffer said. “They automatically felt more comfortable with us. They showed us their homes, and even though they didn’t have much, they were still very generous to us. They accepted us as sisters, and we’re glad that we were here to help them.”

Although Afghan women tend to be more reserved than Afghan men, they still have a large influence on their children, Shaffer said, so engaging with them is important.

“If the women know we are here to help them, they will likely pass that on to their children,” she said. “If the children have a positive perspective of alliance forces, they will be less likely to join insurgent groups or participate in insurgent activities.”

Hoffman said the female Marines also were accepted by the village men.

“They were not opposed by the villagers,” Hoffman said. “They had no problem allowing [the team] the chance to interact with their women.”

The concept employed by her team varies greatly from the program in Iraq because of differences in Afghan culture, Shaffer said.

“The cultural background here is completely different than that of Iraq,” Shaffer said. “Women here are more timid than in Iraq. There is less of a chance that an Afghan women would try to harm us, because they understand that we are here to help them.

“We also do not know much about the daily life of Afghan women,” she continued. “This provides us not only the opportunity to learn about the women, but also to build and maintain faith and trust of the Afghan women.”

(Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Monty Burton serves with Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Afghanistan.)

Obama abandons term 'enemy combatant'

By NEDRA PICKLER

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush's key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant

In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Obama still asserts the military's authority to hold prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But he says that authority comes from Congress and the international laws of war, not from the president's own wartime power.

Bush had argued that the president as commander in chief could unilaterally hold prisoners without charge.

The Justice Department says prisoners can only be detained if their support for al-Qaida or the Taliban was "substantial."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP)—The Obama administration is trying to protect top Bush administration military officials from lawsuits brought by prisoners who say they were tortured while being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Justice Department argued in a filing Thursday with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that holding military officials liable for their treatment of prisoners could cause them to make future decisions based on fear of litigation rather than appropriate military policy.

The Obama administration was expected to take another stand affecting Guantanamo detainees' lawsuits Friday. A federal judge overseeing lawsuits of detainees challenging their detention has given the Justice Department until the close of business to give its definition of whom the United States may hold as an "enemy combatant."

Obama has pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within a year, and Justice Department lawyers are already trying to find courtrooms or foreign countries to place the 240 people still held there.

The new administration is seeking to craft new rules for when and how a terror suspect can be seized, and what interrogation methods may be used in trying to extract information from them. But while it works on those rules, the Obama administration appears to be sticking with Bush administration legal definitions in pending litigation.

Last month in another court filing, the Justice Department sided with the Bush White House by arguing that detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

"The president has ordered a comprehensive review of both the government's overall policy for detainees and the status of detainees held at Guantanamo," Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. "The Guantanamo detention facility will be closed by January 22, 2010, but in the meantime, we will continue to litigate cases involving detainees."

The suit before the appeals court was brought by four British citizens—Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith—who were sent back to Great Britain in 2004. The defendants in the case include former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and retired Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Eric Lewis, attorney for the four, said Friday that military officials should be subject to liability when they order torture.

"The upshot of the Justice Department's position is that there is no right of detainees not to be tortured and that officials who order torture should be protected," Lewis said.

The men say they were beaten, shackled in painful stress positions and threatened by dogs during their time at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. They also say they were harassed while practicing their religion, including forced shaving of their beards, banning or interrupting their prayers, denying them copies of the Koran and prayer mats and throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet.

They contend in their lawsuit that the treatment violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which provides that the "government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion."

The appeals court ruled against them early last year, saying because the men were foreigners held outside the United States, they do not fall within the definition of a "person" protected by the act.

But later in the year, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees have some rights under the Constitution. So the Supreme Court instructed the appeals court to reconsider the lawsuit in light of their decision.

Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance. ....

U.S. Arranging to Send Prisoners to Saudi Arabia

By JAY SOLOMON

WASHINGTON -- Some of the roughly 100 Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay would go to Saudi Arabia under a plan being discussed by U.S. and Saudi officials, said people briefed on the talks.

Yemenis make up the largest national grouping among the roughly 250 inmates still at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo. U.S. officials believe addressing their fate is urgent if President Barack Obama is to make good on his commitment to close the prison by January 2010.

U.S. officials say about 15 of the Yemenis have been cleared for transfer to Yemen, and another 15 are likely to face some kind of U.S. trial.

The remainder pose a quandary: The U.S. no longer wants to hold them, but it fears that Yemen's government lacks the means to rehabilitate the men, many of whom officials say pose a threat to the U.S. And American officials question whether Yemen has sufficient law-enforcement muscle to keep tabs on returnees.

Ali Abdullah Saleh

U.S. and Arab officials said Saudi authorities have developed a program for Islamist extremists that is largely viewed as a success by U.S. and European counterterrorism officials. The program includes vocational training, family reunification and religious tutoring.

Yemen's government has indicated it will contest any American efforts to transfer Yemeni nationals to Saudi Arabia. The detainee question is a political issue for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Yemeni officials says they're developing their own rehabilitation program that includes religious and vocational training, but would require U.S. financial assistance.

"We refused the offer to release the Yemenis to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation, and we told them we would establish our own center for rehabilitating them and helping to rid the country of extremism and violence," Mr. Saleh told a conference of Yemeni police commanders in late January, according to Yemen's state media.

A State Department spokesman declined to specifically address the Yemeni issue but said the U.S. "has been in contact with dozens of countries about resettling those detainees at Guantanamo Bay eligible for transfer or release." Saudi officials didn't reply to requests seeking comment.

An Arab official briefed on the discussions said the U.S. is examining whether it can in the near term transfer to Saudi custody around 20 Yemenis with direct family connections to Saudi Arabia.

Yemen and Saudi Arabia share a border and some of the same tribal families. Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is a Saudi national, but his family's ancestral home is in Yemen.

"It seems like the Saudis are willing to rehabilitate them," said the Arab official, noting Riyadh is concerned about the threat posed to Saudi Arabia by Yemen's security situation.

U.S. officials say Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation program isn't fail-safe. Last month, two Saudi nationals who were released from Guantanamo and passed through the program appeared in a video as senior members of al Qaeda's Yemen operations.

U.S. counterterrorism officials worry that Yemen is becoming a bigger base of operations for al Qaeda. In September, a six-member suicide squad attacked the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital of San'a, killing 13 people.

U.S. officials complain about Yemen's lax detention facilities. Twenty-three Yemeni men, some suspected of involvement in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, escaped from prison in 2006, according to U.S. officials. Another suspect, Jamal al-Badawi, also escaped but was put back into custody last fall under U.S. pressure.

Two Yemenis, Ramzi Binalshibh and Wali bin Attash, face prosecution by the U.S. for alleged roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters this month she is gauging European interest in resettling Guantanamo detainees. "I think we have been quite encouraged at the positive, receptive responses we've been getting," she said.

U.S. Jet Shoots Down Iranian Drone Over Iraq (Updated)

By Noah Shachtman

An American fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone as it was flying over Iraq, U.S. military sources in Baghdad tell Danger Room.

Details of the previously-unreported shoot-down, which occurred last month, are still sketchy. But we do know that American commanders have long accused Tehran of supplying weapons and training to all sorts of Iraqi militant groups. Shi'ite militias fired Iranian rockets at U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the American military; Sunni militias allegedly used Iranian armor-piercing bombs to reduce U.S. vehicles to ribbons.

In early 2008, however, the torrent of Iranian weapons into Iraq slowed to a trickle, the U.S. said. And now, the new Obama administration is looking for ways to reach out to the Tehran regime -- dangling invitations to international conferences, and offering promises of renewed relations.

Which means the drone incident comes at a particularly sensitive time.

Iran has built an array of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. The pneumatically launched Ababil ("Swallow") has a wingspan of more than 10 feet, and cruises at 160 knots, according to Globalsecurity.org. The Mohajer or Misrad ("Migrant") drone is a bit smaller, and slower-flying.

Iran has supplied Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group, with both models. Misrad drones flew reconnaissance missions in both November 2004 and April 2005. Then, in 2006, during Hezbollah's war with Israel, the group operated both Misrads and Ababils over Israel's skies. At least one was shot down by Israeli fighter jets.

Since then, Tehran claims to have radically upgraded its unmanned fleet. In 2007, Iran said it built a drone with a range of 420 miles. In February, Iran's deputy defense minister claimed its latest UAV could now fly as far as 600 miles -- a huge improvement over crude drones like the Misrad, if true. Iran often exaggerates what its weapons can do. But, if this drone really can stay in the air for for that long, the Washington Times notes, "it could soar over every U.S. military installation, diplomatic mission or country of interest in the Middle East." Including those in Iraq.

UPDATE: So I finally got a hold of a spokesman for Multi-National Corps - Iraq. His response: "I believe MNF-I [Multi-National Forces - Iraq -- Corps' bosses, basically] is taking the lead on this incident." So then I reached out to MNF-I. A spokesman there wouldn't confirm the shoot-down. Nor would he deny it. "We've got nothing for you, Noah," the spokesman said.