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DeliciousMinistry 'showed fatal incompetence'
Tuesday, August 18, 2009The Polish Defence Ministry has been accused by the chief of Poland's land forces General Waldemar Skrzypczak of being partly responsible for the death of Captain Daniel Ambrozinski, who died in Afghanistan last week.
The argument appears to be around equipment, with Skrzypczak suggesting that if the Polish army had unmanned aerial vehicles and adequately armed helicopters, Ambrozinski might not have been hit by a Taliban sniper.
Although Skrzypczak said that this equipment had been asked for over two years ago, the defence minister Bogdan Klich said he had not been told directly about the claims. However, Klich is currently drawing up a list of equipment he would like Polish troops in Afghanistan to have.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk agreed that more equipment was needed to help the troops and was looking to make it easier for them to get it, including unmanned surveillance aircraft, vehicles and personal equipment.
HAVE YOUR SAY
The question i have which no one seems to be able to answer is: who is funding the Taliban? Is it via foreign powers, terrorist groups, fund raising on the streets of the UK, what is it? We need to clamp down on their sources of finance, that will hurt them more than anything.
John - London
John, my suspicion is that it is, amongst others, the Russians! Payback for their own Western-inspired earlier misfortunes in Afghanistan! GRU officers are reportedly acting as crew on the many cheap-to-run chartered Russian helicopters used to back up NATO forces on the cheap in Afghanistan. That's where the sophistication with all the IEDs is coming from. Being passed by them on to the Taliban.
But not just Russian specialists concealed as helicopter crews, but probably also combat-experienced pro-Russian Chechens & similarly Uzbeks. They may have been the extremist Afghanis' enemy in the past, but making common cause is standard in war - according to the age-old principle of your enemy is my enemy so let us be friends (for the time being).
Agincourt - Walsall