Reading through the comments on various news sides not one persons seems to believe this story:
A group of “less than 10” insurgents, including the fighter who allegedly shot the Chinook helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, were tracked down at a compound in eastern Afghanistan early Monday and killed in airstrikes by F-16 fighter planes, according to Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, and other military officials.
One wonders why the military felt the need to come out with this obvious fairytale.
It hurts its own credibility with such a story.
The Taliban deny it and claim that the fighters had immediately left Wardak province after trapping the helicopter. That story actually makes a lot of sense.
But there is even more unbelievable U.S. propaganda further down in the first linked piece:
“All across Afghanistan, the insurgents are losing. They’re losing territory, they’re losing leadership, they’re losing weapons and supplies, they’re losing public support,” [General Allen] said. “More and more, the insurgents are losing resolve and the will to fight.”
We know that the numbers of districts with Taliban activity is up, the number of IEDs is at a record high, the number of assassination by the Taliban is up, the numbers of U.S. an Afghan security forces' casualties is the highest ever and the number of civilian casualties is sharply up. But all that does not count. The insurgents are losing – the General says so, so they must be.
But who does he think will actually believe him?