Author: Justin Fishel

The U.S. Navy has moved one step closer to ending the policy that bans women from submarines.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent letters to Congress notifying them of  Navy’s desire to  deploy women.  The letters support “a phased approach to the assignment of women in submarines”, one military official told Fox.

If all goes to plan the Navy will institute a policy change after both sides of Congress have had 30 “in session” days to consider it.  If lawmakers object they’ll have until mid-April to pass a law that specifically bans women on subs, otherwise it becomes Navy policy.

It ‘s already clear that at least some house members will object, according to a congressional source.  Another possible objection could come from Navy wives, but the military already has plans to conduct outreach programs to that specific group.

Currently there are no women in the military assigned to submarines. Women do board subs on some occasions, but almost never on longer trips.

The plan calls for women to be phased in slowly, starting with more senior officers on the larger subs.  Women only began serving on surface ships in 1993.

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen spoke to reporters Monday for the first time since the operation in Marjah, Afghanistan got underway just over a week ago.

The press conference was held one day the after NATO forces conducted an air strike that mistakenly killed, according to Afghan officials, over 20 innocent civilians. The incident is under investigation and according to a military press release NATO commander, General Stanley McChrystal, spoke with President Karzai to express his “sorrow and regret”. McChrystal has has curbed the use of air power and said repeatedly that the new strategy for this war is to protect the lives of Afghan civilians.

Meanwhile, in Washington Admiral Mullen acknowledged difficulties in the Marjah operation, saying progress has been “slower than anticipated.” “In some places, the enemy fights harder than expected”, Mullen explained. “The IEDs he has planted along the roads and at intersections, though crude, are still deadly.”

Like McChrystal, Gates was apologetic about the loss of civilian life over the weekend, but with one caveat. “The thing to remember is that we’re at war”, an impassioned Gates told Pentagon reporters. “It is also a fact that the Taliban mingle with civilians. They use them for cover, which obviously complicates any decision process by a commander on the ground… I’m not defending it at all; I’m just saying that these kinds of things, in many respects, are inherent in a war. It’s what makes war so ugly.”

Gates pointed out that casualties had come on both sides. “We had a very tough weekend. There were I think nine American soldiers and Marines killed in this operation, another two outside of Kandahar.”

Mullen said that in the short term people tend to focus on the failures of war and that success will take more time. “If we’ve learned nothing else these past eight years, it is that failure makes itself plainly clear, but success takes longer to see. We will see success in Marjah, but we must be patient.”

Asked repeatedly about his stance on the gays in the military, the top commander in Iraq told reporters at the Pentagon, “I dont have time to think about it.” General Raymond Odierno said he hasn’t been focusing on the issue because “we’re kind of busy right now, trying to do our job in Iraq.”

When pressed on his personal opinion he said, “my opinion is everyone should be allowed to serve, as long as we’re still able to fight our wars and we’re able to have forces that are capable of doing whatever we’re asked to do.”

Odierno said he supports the decision by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to conduct a year long review that explores repealing the current “Dont Ask Dont Tell” policy and allowing gays to openly serve. “Let’s give the soldiers a chance to give their opinion, and then move out from there.”

Odierno did not say which way he felt the military was leaning on the issue as a whole, but said if asked they’ll make it clear. “I think the soldiers will — soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines — when teams are out and they go out and they conduct surveys and they talk to people, I think they will get exactly what they want, in terms of how people feel about it. I truly believe that.”

A “Military Times” poll published in early February shows 51 percent of active duty military are opposed to allowing gays to serve openly.

Washington D.C. — Mulvi Kabir, the former Taliban governor in Afghanistan’s Nangahar Province, and a key figure in the Taliban regime was recently captured in Pakistan, two senior US officials tell Fox News. Kabir, considered to be among the top ten most wanted Taliban leaders, was apprehended in the Naw Shera district of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province by Pakistani police forces in recent days.

A senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan called Kabir a “significant detention.”

The intelligence that led to Kabir’s capture was gathered from Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s second in command, who was picked up roughly two weeks ago in Karachi, Pakistan by a joint CIA and Pakistani intelligence operation.

Baradar’s capture has been followed by a series of major detentions within the Taliban’s ranks, individuals U.S. officials are describing as “shadow governors” who operate from the safety of Pakistan’s frontier and tribal regions.

In addition to Kabir, Mullah Salam of Afghanistan’s Kunduz province and Mullah Mohammad, who reportedly controlled the Baghlan province, were both captured after Baradar and together all are considered by experts to be the most important captures Pakistan has made in relation to the Taliban in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

The Pentagon said on Thursday the “Taliban is clearly being squeezed” on both sides of the border. Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell would not speak directly to the intelligence that led to these detentions, but said “our hope is clearly that this is creating a certain amount of discontent, worry, [and] turmoil within the organization.”

Acknowledging the difficulty US and NATO forces have had fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan Morrell said he hopes these arrests will “ultimately adversely impact the momentum that they have enjoyed over the past several months.”

Speaking to reporters in Islamabad yesterday, Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said the capture of top Taliban military strategist Mullah Baradar is “very significant” and “represents another high-water mark for Pakistani and American collaboration.”

The series of arrests began days after Pakistan announced it would like to have a larger role in the future of Afghanistan by offering to help with Afghan Taliban reconciliation efforts. Asked to explain the sudden increase in support from Pakistan, General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that Pakistan has come to realize Taliban can no longer be seen as a nuisance only to the West. “Some ten months ago… the Pakistani people, their political, including the major opposition figures and even the clerics, all recognized the threat posed to the very writ of governance of Pakistan.”

Washington D.C. — One week into the invasion of Marjah, Afghanistan Marines and NATO forces are beginning to feel the restrictions put on them by their own rules of engagement. The roughly 800 Taliban insurgents who decided to stay and fight need to be carefully distinguished from tens of thousands of innocent civilians before they can be engaged by coalition forces. The goal, says NATO’s top general in Afghanistan, is to win the hearts and minds of the population, not to decimate it.

But the Taliban know the rules. They know that Marines aren’t allowed to fire on them if they don’t have a weapon. Marines have struggled with Taliban snipers who lay down their rifles after they run out of bullets, taunting the American forces as they walk away from the buildings they used for cover. Fox’s Conner Powell is embedded with a Marine unit in the region. “We’ve seen them be extremely disciplined with their fire”, Powell said. “They’ve not returned fire when they’ve been attacked by Taliban insurgents unless they can confirm in fact that it was Taliban insurgents or snipers shooting at them.”

NATO forces are also hampered by what’s known as the “96 hour rule”. Last summer NATO instituted a new detainee policy which says that if any NATO or International Security Assistance Force soldiers, including Americans, can’t transfer captured terrorists or enemy combatants to the Afghan justice system within 96 hours, they have to be released. The problem is that in many cases there isn’t enough time or resources to move detainees, and they end up going free. Some in the military are calling it the “catch and release rule.”

Bob Scales, a Fox News military analyst and retired Army Major General, says the Taliban know what they are doing and they’re taking advantage of the rules. “This war isn’t being fought against mindless ignorant peasants; it’s being fought against a wily enemy who is smart enough to use our rules of engagement against us”, Scales said.

Troops are also told that harsh treatment of detainees, including the use of rough language, is also not allowed. This applies even if the detainees are known to have planted roadside bombs or fired on coalition forces.

There are some exceptions to the rules. If a wanted terrorist is picked up by a U.S. Special Forces unit working under the confines of Operation Enduring Freedom, rather than NATO, that prisoner would be sent to a detention facility at Bagram Air Base, where U.S. interrogators would be free to question him within the guidelines of the Army Field Manual.

Yet the elite units are greatly outnumbered by NATO forces and therefore most detainees are picked up under the 96 hour rule. But the rules are in place for good reason, says State Department Spokesman PJ Crowley. “Having once been a soldier myself, there are always going to be frustrations at various times”, Crowley told reporters Friday. “But I think we are quite satisfied with the strategy.”

At the request of Gen. Raymond Odierno (top general in Iraq), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has approved changing the name of the mission in Iraq from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” to “Operation New Dawn”, a senior defense official tells Fox.

According to a memo signed by Secretary Gates this new name better fits with the Security Agreement the US has with Iraq.  “Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission”, Gates wrote.

The name change takes effect on Sep 1 2010.

Fox News has learned that the Army is investigating allegations that five individuals attempted to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, told Fox’s Catherine Herridge that these are still just allegations, and so far “there is no credible information to support them”. Nevertheless, an investigation is ongoing Grey said.

Two sources at Fort Jackson revealed that the five accused individuals were detained in December, and all were enrolled in an Arabic translation training program, referred to in the Army as “Lima 09”. “Each of them uses Arabic as his first language”, one source told Fox.

NORAD launched two F-16 fighter jets from Ellington Field in Houston in response to a small plane that crashed into an Austin, Texas office building.  A spokesman with NORAD/ Northern Command calls the air patrol a “precaution” and tells Fox, “it’s pretty evident this is not a terrorist event, but the F-16’s will remain in the air until we are confident there is no further threat.”

The jets were launched at 1142 ET, about 1 hour after the crash occurred.

Local authorities on the ground are calling this an “isolated incident” saying “there is no further need for alarm.”

The suspected pilot, Andrew Joseph Stack III, reportedly set fire to his home while his wife and daughter were still inside before flying his plane into a building that is known to house IRS offices.

A U.S. official confirms to Fox News that a second so-called “shadow governor” of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Mohammed, was captured in Pakistan. This official would not say if this was a joint effort with the CIA.

This brings the total number of significant captures in recent days to three.

Fox reported last night that Mullah Salam of Kunduz province was apprehended by a joint U.S.-Paksitani intelligence operation; and most notably Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s second in command only to Mullah Omar, was also captured in recent days.

A Pakistani official told the Associated Press that Mullah Baradar has provided “useful” information, but the White House and intelligence officials have refused to say if Baradar is even talking, let alone being helpful.

Fox News has confirmed a breaking news story coming from Newsweek Magazine; another high-ranking leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mullah Salam, has been captured by a joint U.S.- Pakistani intelligence operation in Pakistan. There is no evidence this capture resulted from intelligence gleaned from Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s # 2 operative who was apprehended in Pakistan just days ago.

“The capture of an Afghan Taliban ‘shadow governor’ is positive, good news” a U.S. official tells Fox’s Mike Emanuel. It’s not as big as getting Baradar, he said, but “whenever the Pakistanis arrest somebody, that is a plus”.

The White House and the Pentagon are refusing to comment on the record about the capture of senior Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Pakistan, but Fox News has learned from senior officials that this individual was a serious player in the region and that his absence will have an immediate impact on the Taliban’s battlefield operations.

Baradar, second in Command only to the Taliban’s notorious leader Mullah Omar, was picked up several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan by a joint CIA and Pakistani intelligence operation. Fox’s Scott Heidler is reporting from the region today that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, has interrogated Baradar and he’s now in the hands of the CIA.

A senior U.S. official told Pentagon reporter Mike Emanuel “[Baradar] is a major player in the Afghan Taliban, someone with a lot of blood on his hands. If he’s off the streets, it would be a serious setback for the Taliban in the near term and deal a severe personal blow to Mullah Omar, who has relied on him for years as a trusted associate.”

Pentagon Spokesman Col. Dave Lapan would not speak to the specifics of his detainment or capture, but said in the past when major players are taken out of the game it takes a while for them to recover.

“It has an immediate impact to their operations when we kill or capture senior leaders, but we have seen too that they then push successors into their place. So the period of time after the initial incident where somebody of significance is killed or captured there is an impact to their operations, but how long it takes them to sort of reconstitute depends on the situation.”

NATO and Afghan forces are 5 days into their critical offensive operation in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, Afghanistan. Although it’s estimated there are no more that 400-800 Taliban fighters remaining, it’s safe to say commanders there would welcome a disruption in the Taliban’s leadership.

The 15,000 man offensive into the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in southern Afghanistan experienced its first two NATO casualties, military officials announced Saturday.

In separate incidents a British soldier was killed by an IED and American was killed in a small arms fire fight. They are the first deaths of an operation that is aimed at preventing as many deaths as possible on both sides of the fight. The purpose is to build trust in the Afghan government by protecting and serving the local population. Reports from the region say the initial push been successful so far. A spokesman in Afghanistan told Fox both men died today “serving bravely in Operation Moshtarak”.

Word on the Pentagon beat is that a much anticipated military offensive, the first of its kind under Obama’s Afghanistan surge, will get underway very soon.

Senior military commanders are calling it the largest operation since the start of Afghanistan war. 15,000 American, Afghan, and NATO forces plan to storm the central Helmand town of Marjah, one of the Taliban’s most strongly held positions in Afghanistan.

Operation Moshtarak, which means “together” in Dari, will focus on securing the population and inserting the Afghan government where drug trade and corruption now run rampant.

Marjah is a town of around 80,000 people and it’s estimated 1,000 Taliban are burrowed in to fight. Small skirmished have broken out while the Taliban attempts to draw Marines in before they are set, but the brunt of the fighting is still to come

If the attack goes to plan the Taliban will lose critical source of funding, the Afghan government will gain legitimacy, and Obama can claim his first real victory in a war many believe the U.S. is losing.

Iran announced it will ban the use of Google e-mail services, better known as GMAIL, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.  According to the report the Iranian government says the new policy is not intended to limit access to social networking sites, instead it’s designed to encourage use of a new national email service.  Iran was criticized heavily by the international community for violently suppressing protests after its controversial presidential election last June.

It hasn’t been confirmed by Google or anyone else whether or not Iran has implemented the ban. Iran made the announcement on the eve of the 31st anniversary of its Islamic Revolution, and a day after it announced it will begin enriching uranium at 20 percent — bringing it closer to the 90 percent enrichment level need to make a nuclear weapon. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley responded to the GMAIL announcement Wednesday with this statement:

“While information technologies are enabling people around the world to communicate like never before, the Iranian government seems determined to deny its citizens access to information, the ability to express themselves freely, network and share ideas. Virtual walls won’t work in the 21st century any better than physical walls worked in the 20th century. The Iranian people are dynamic and determined and will find a way to overcome the obstacles the Iranian government puts in their way.”

Certain jobs just need to be done rain, snow or shine. Mailmen, the power company, road workers and hospital staff top the list of all-weather employees. But journalists, particularly television journalists, fall into that category too. Mike Emanuel and I report from the Pentagon daily – and even Snowmageddon 2 couldn’t stop us this morning. Not surprisingly, we are some of the only people here. It’s a strange feeling to be in an empty building that on average day holds about 20,000 people a day.

I facetiously told a Navy Captain who asked what I was doing here that the policy for most news organizations is to risk life and limb for work. He said “Funny, that’s our policy too.” Thinking about the risks the military takes made me feel pretty good about my situation today. And the truth is we stayed in a hotel across the street last night.

But there is concern about how a prolonged federal government shut down in Washington D.C. begins to affect the military. We asked Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman if overseas operations are slowed by the fact that the Pentagon has been closed all week. Here’s what he said:

“All our essential activities continue unabated by the snow. The National Military Command Center is fully operational. Key leaders have redundant and secure communications capability from any location.

Furthermore, it is important to remember that our combat and other military operations are executed in a decentralized manner and commanders carry out their missions worldwide regardless of how much snow falls in Washington.”

So the Pentagon may be on a snow day, but rest assured the military is not.