Word: commandos
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...long been taboo in military cultures for soldiers to complain about the invisible wounds of war. After a distinguished career as a SEAL commando, Waddell reached his breaking point following the worst disaster in SEAL history, in June 2005: a Chinook helicopter filled with eight SEALs and eight Army aviators was shot down while trying to rescue four comrades trapped by a Taliban ambush in the Kunar Mountains in Afghanistan. Waddell, who was stationed at the unit's base in Virginia Beach, had the agonizing task of sorting through the remains of his dead men - young warriors he had fought...
...They were dressed in black, all black," says Inam Mansoor, 33, an ambulance driver who entered the compound to recover the wounded. "They were carrying guns and backpacks. The had commando-style scarves wrapped around their heads." Surprisingly, Mansoor says that the attackers included three women, citing the police commandos he spoke to inside the compound. Police commandos present elsewhere at the scene said the same, though the claims later appeared to be inaccurate. Still, in recent months there have been reports of groups of militant young women - some once belonging to Islamabad's Lal Masjid - traveling to Dera Ghazi...
...Soon after 9am, groups of gunmen spilled over the walls of an elite police commando training facility in the Badian neighborhood in southern Lahore. As they emerged, clasping sophisticated weapons and carrying backpacks, two other groups of attackers did the same in two other locations. For the first time, they revisited targets they had assaulted before. In a brief attack on a police-training academy in Manawan, on the outskirts of the city, nine police officers and four militants were killed in the fighting. The same site was targeted using similar methods on March 30, leading to an eight-hour...
...When the firing at the commando training facility in Badian began, Mohammad Hayat, 30, was cleaving meat apart at his rickety butcher's stall a hundred yards away. "The attackers came the side," he recalls. "I quickly ran and took safety over there." Hayat gestures toward the row of small shops that were shuttered and abandoned as security forces built up a response. "The police arrived about ten minutes later, then the army came as well. There was shooting and then explosions. It went on for three hours at least." (See pictures of the front-line battle against the Taliban...
...When the militants entered the compound, said Lt. Gen. Shafqat Ahmed, the commanding military officer at the scene, two were killed within moments. The other three climbed atop a roof and began shooting at the police commandos and hurling grenades. "There was a very brave police commando who began firing back straight away," said a police commando, declining to be named. The sniping commando struck one of the attackers down. The last attacker blew himself up. The attackers appeared to be prepared for the long haul, carrying dried fruit with them, and intent on taking hostages...