KABUL, May 15, 2006 (AFP) - A French soldier was killed Monday in a blast during a mine clearance operation near Afghanistan's main international airport in the capital, the French military said. The soldier, aged 22, was seriously hurt in the explosion and died later of his wounds, the military said in a statement.
Thank you, mon amie. Rest in peace
France has now lost five soldiers in Afghanistan since deploying to the country in 2001, weeks after the hard-line Taliban government was removed from power by a coalition led by the United States, a spokesman said. Two were killed in action in the south in the past months, where a Taliban-led insurgency is fiercest. One died a clash with Taliban in March; the other died in a bomb blast in September.
France has about 670 soldiers working in areas around the capital Kabul as part of NATO-led peacekeeping contingent, the International Security Assistance Force, which is made up of troops from more than 30 countries. The force is helping to remove the thousands of mines that still litter Afghanistan, which is emerging from nearly 30 years of war, and conducts daily patrols on the outskirts of the capital.
France has another 200 special forces soldiers in Spin Boldak in Kandahar province, one of the areas most plagued by attacks from rebels loyal to the Islamist Taliban government that was removed for sheltering the al-Qaeda terror network.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2006 09:46 ||
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Thank you, mon amie
Thank you, mon ami (without the e), amie is when you are referring to a woman.
#4
Yes, as much as we do like to rag on France and her military, we really do appreciate the hard work (what little her politicians allow) and sacrifice that her soldiers do.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A Taleban commander and his deputy were among 11 rebel fighters killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan, which also left five policemen dead, a provincial official said on Monday. Eight policemen and five Taleban were wounded in the hours-long clash in Kandahar province on Sunday and three rebels were arrested, a provincial government spokesman, Mohammad Daud Ahmadi, told AFP.
Among the Taleban dead were a provincial level commander, Mullah Abdul Baqi, and his deputy Mullah Abdul Manan, Ahmadi said.
The fighting started in Kandahars Panjwayi district after police had gone to the area after tip-offs that Taleban were there. Panjwayi, about 35 kilometres (21 miles) west of Kandahar city, is known to be a hideout for Taleban militants who have been waging a guerrilla-like insurgency against President Hamid Karzais government for more than four years. The district borders Helmand province, which also sees regular attacks blamed on Taleban insurgents said to be allied with the Al Qaeda network and opium traders.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2006 08:47 ||
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Not a mere Number 3, but Numbers 1 and 2! And, as a result of tip-offs. :-)
US military spokesman confirmed that a rocket had been fired late on Saturday at the main US-led coalition base at an airfield in the Kandahar city, adding that no casualties had been incurred.
That'd be Hek's boyz, of course...
Elsewhere, two bombs exploded in northern Afghanistan near a vehicle belonging to NATO forces, injuring four policemen and five civilians, including a 9-year-old girl, officials said. The first blast, in Baghlan province, damaged the vehicle from NATO's International Security Assistance Force but caused no injuries, said Maj Toby Jackman, an ISAF spokesman. Soon after, a second bomb exploded nearby, injuring four policemen and five civilians who had gathered at the scene, said Mohammed Qassim Amirzai, the deputy chief of police. A 9-year-old girl was in a serious condition, he said.
The double boom's more likely al-Qaeda.
Separately, a worker for the country's internal intelligence service was killed and a teacher was wounded in Helmand province when gunmen attacked them after they left a wedding party Saturday night, said provincial administrator Ghulam Muhiddim.
In Helmand it's likely Pak Talibs skulking outside someplace where people would be having fun. I think we've got the pattern down now.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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A gun battle between suspected Taliban militants and police broke out Sunday after the law enforcement officials surrounded a small village in Kandahar, a government spokesman said. Four police and up to eleven militants were killed. The four-hour gun battle also left four police officers wounded, said Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial governor. He said the militants left three bodies behind and took eight with them when they fled the village in the Panjwayi district. Police surrounded the village after receiving a tip that Taliban militants were there, Ahmadi said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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4 policemen: 11 hard boyz is a much better ratio than they used to get.
In the midst of one of the worst factional fighting in Somalia, the newly established anti-terror alliance sealed off Mogadishu by manning checkpoints at all roads going into the city today. The spokesman for the alliance, Mr. Hussein Gutale Rage told the local media that the public and commercial transport will be allowed to get into and out of the city as long as they are not affiliated with what he called the terrorists, meaning the Islamic courts. Mr. Gutale said his alliance took this step to secure the capital. No word regarding this new development has been heard from the Islamic courts.
Of course not. They couldn't get out of town, could they?
The fight in the city entered its seventh straight day although no ground has been gained by either side.
Apparently warlords aren't generals.
Most people fled the north of the city where the two factions are using everything at their disposal to southern districts and surrounding towns. In a Reuters news article that was circulated on the net today, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi made it clear that the US is helping one of the factions. She said America is doing it to make sure Somalia doesn't become another terrorist safe haven and we are doing it in the interests of protecting America.
Sounds good to me. Maybe the Somalis can get it out of their system and settle down once the corpses have been counted. Though I doubt it.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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...the newly established anti-terror alliance
Qhat addicted warlord thugs manning shakedown roadblocks trying a new image? The CIA send them a PR guy?
#2
After all, tu3031, the warlord thugs are fighting against the groups attempting to impose Sharia. The description is accurate, if horribly incomplete.
Six people have been killed after protesters in Darfur opposed to the recent peace deal between rebels and the Sudanese government clashed with police. The deadliest clashes occurred in and around camps for internally displaced persons in South Darfur state, where three civilians reportedly died in an exchange of gunfire. The clashes erupted on on Saturday after protesters beat to death a military intelligence agent inside the Kass camp, Sudan's Al Rai al-Aam daily reported. Police acting on a tip dispatched a task force to rescue the man, but the team ran into a group of protesters moving towards a nearby Africa Union (AU) camp and a gun battle ensued, the paper added.
An official statement said that an old man and a child were killed in similar violence in the Abu Shouk camp on the outskirts of al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur state. "Just when North Darfur state looks forward to the peace that was signed in Abuja with joy and happiness, the enemies of peace are aspiring to stain the peace that has become a reality," the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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The bodies of 18 children and three women, apparently massacred by Islamic insurgents, have been found in a cave in Algeria, police said. The bodies were found at Jijel, 360 kilometres east of the capital Algiers, when troops raided a cave network in search of insurgents, killing five of them, police said in a statement.
Government forces were hunting down extremists, still holding out in attempts to continue a long-running civil war, when they uncovered the bodies. It was believed the victims were family members killed in order to prevent them from talking to the authorities.
I can understand killing your wife, maybe. I've thought about it a time or two when the credit cards came due. Killing your children is beyond my comprehension.
On Wednesday security sources said that 10 suspected militants were killed by the army in the Jijel area in an attack on an insurgent hideout. The alleged Islamic radicals were identified by the security source as belonging to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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The bodies of 18 children and three women, apparently massacred by Islamic insurgents, have been found in a cave in Algeria, police said. The bodies were found at Jijel, 360 kilometres east of the capital Algiers, when troops raided a cave network in search of insurgents, killing five of them, police said in a statement.
this one might make the Islamo Crown Jewels cat.
*
sic pic Mr. Fred...
but way way funny! High Snark LMAO funny!
/now ifr I were to post it on a thread...well methinks I'd be visitin the ole ST!
can understand killing your wife, maybe. I've thought about it a time or two when the credit cards came due.
#3
IIUC, many of their "families" are in fact abucted women, a staple of the algerian islamic groups (one pamphlet included the phrase "we're gonna steal your cattle and your wives, yaaarrr", I'm not joking, this has stuck in my memory due to the likeness to a line from a Mel Brooks movie), and the infortunate offsprings of such "relationship", at least that was the case in the 90's.
Emotional involvment must be pretty limited, especially coming from men who had the habit of cutting the throats of entire villages, or smashing babies' head, or cutting them into pieces and putting them back into the ripped belly of their mother (this was done to french pieds noirs during the independence war too, btw).
#4
this was done to french pieds noirs during the independence war too, btw).
This was done to harkis (Algerians who served in the French Army), this was done to Algerians who didn't favor the rebellion, this was done to Algerians who favored rebellion but supported revial movement from the FLN
#5
I remeber reading fragments from the manual of the perfect GIA jihadist. It deals with matters like what to do when the amir allocates the same woman to father and son (they have to take monthly turns ie wait until she has menstruated). It alsot mandates killing of kidnapped women who become pregnant
A Rajshahi court yesterday sentenced 13 militants of Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ahle Hadith Andolan Bangladesh (Ahab) to life imprisonment in an August 17 serial blast case in Joypurhat. The Speedy Trial Tribunal Judge AFM Aminul Islam convicted them under the Explosives Act for carrying and exploding bombs at seven spots in four areas in the district. He also fined the convicted persons Tk 5000 each and ordered one more year in jail if they chose not to pay the fine.
The judge however acquitted 14 accused people including a few who gave confessional statements before magistrates as the prosecution failed to prove their guilt. The acquitted are: Al Hera Shilpi Gosthi Chief Shafikul Islam, Bazla Ahab mosque imam Hafez Shafikul Islam, Dulal Hossain, Mozammel Haque, Idris Ali, Abdul Jabbar, Aminul Islam Zahed, Ziaur Rahman, Redwan Bari Akhand, Mustafizur Rahman, Afaz Uddin Poheli, Habibur Rahman, Abdul Ma'bud and Selim.
Let the holy man off, did they? Why am I not surprised?
Among the acquitted, Habibur Rahman and Afaz Uddin Poheli confessed their involvement in testing the bombs before blasts. Rickshaw-puller Atoar Rahman, Dulal, Ahab adherents Azizul Bari Mintu, Jahangir Alam, Rabiul Islam gave confessional statements. Azizul Bari Mintu in his confessional statement said the bombs were distributed from Bazla Ahab mosque. Among the 29 charge-sheeted accused in the case, Hafizar Rahman, finance secretary of militant kingpin Asadullah Al Galib's Ahab and Sultan were exempted from the case as they were dead.
Dead is good. I like dead.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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TERRORISTS from al-Qaeda have infiltrated Britain's security services, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.
Breathlessly.
Bosses at MI5 believe they unwittingly recruited the Muslim extremists after the July 7 suicide bombings in London last year which killed 52 people. They were signed up as part of a drive to find more Muslims and Arabic speakers to work as spies to help prevent future attacks by Osama bin Laden fantatics.
Spymasters found some of the agents in Britain's universities and colleges and persuaded them to pass on information about suspected terrorists. But a senior ministerial source has told the Sunday Mirror: "The truth is that it has now been discovered that some of those people have strong links with al-Qaeda.
"There was always a risk that with such a speedy and widespread recruitment some would turn out to be bad eggs.
"But the recruitment has meant we are now in a much better position to stop al-Qaeda attacks than we have ever been before. Several planned attacks have already been stopped thanks to the high quality of our intelligence." But the disclosure that suspected terrorists have infiltrated the security services will be a further embarrassment to Government Ministers.
They came under ferocious pressure last week after an official report claimed MI5 had failed to follow up vital leads before the July 7 bombings. The report from the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said greater coverage by M16 - Britain's overseas spies - in Pakistan and more manpower "might have alerted the agencies to the intentions of the July 7 group".
But MI5 director-general Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller is masterminding a campaign to hire hundreds more intelligence officers to the service. She is looking for IT experts, technicians and language specialists to help monitor "traffic" via emails and phone calls between al-Qaeda terror cells across the world. MI5 is also offering £27,000 a year for "mobile surveillance officers" to follow targets who are part of "national security investigations".
But the service warns that its strict vetting process means it takes up to eight months to consider applications.
And a less strict vetting process lets al-Q in the door.
The ISC report last week found that two of the July 7 bombers - Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - were known to the security services. But they were not seen as a high priority and M15's manpower was diverted to investigate other suspects.
#1
Quick test for muzzie recruits - wire them up to an ECG and chuck a Koran down the bog - the ECG would pick-up any suppressed seething. Seriously, this another big fuck-up by MI5 - not sure they'd let any muzzie know too much about their ops somehow...
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/15/2006 7:19 Comments ||
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UK Universities, Government, and now security services.
#3
Is MI5 taking lessons from the FBI? Perhaps MI5 should consider dropping their suspect employees down a well, to keeps tabs on the 12th imam.
Posted by: ed ||
05/15/2006 7:46 Comments ||
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Eithel, file is in my "OhMyGawd" folder.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/15/2006 8:46 Comments ||
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How's this different from the US? We have an FBI agent who refused to tape Sami al'Arian, we have translators working on intercepts from organizations they were members of, and we have administrators giving speeches to jihadist front organizations.
I dunno why we don't get it over with and start giving the call to prayer from the top of the Washington Monument.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/15/2006 9:34 Comments ||
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Every person you hire is perfect, right? This is bound to happen, sooner or later when you hire something other than white bread. Making it public should scare the others to do something stupid so you can turn them. Then they've got real value.
#8
Why do they hire muslims at all? If the choice is between a muslim and "infidel" who do you think gets the loyalty and honesty? This is not hard to understand it's in their "holy books" and religious teaching from birth.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/15/2006 16:37 Comments ||
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Uh, why not hire Arab christians instead? Just a thought.
Washington banned all U.S. arms sales to Venezuela on Monday, citing the major oil supplier's lack of help in the fight against terrorism, a State Department official said. The move comes after years of antagonism between leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Washington on issues ranging from trade to oil prices that have dragged relations to their worst state in decades.
The United States is concerned about Chavez's friendly relationship with Cuba and Iran, two countries it says sponsor terrorism, and his failure to stop Colombian leftist guerrillas using Venezuelan territory, the U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak for the record, said.
The United States decided to punish Venezuela by adding it to a blacklist of countries who are considered to "not fully cooperate" against terrorism. Hours earlier, the State Department announced it was restoring full diplomatic ties with oil-producing Libya, rewarding the long-time pariah nation for scrapping its weapons of mass destruction programs.
The arms ban means the United States prohibits all military sales to the South American country and prevents any re-sales of U.S. arms and technology from other nations, the official said. It extends a practice of opposing third countries making sales to Venezuela that the United States has been using increasingly in recent months.
Venezuela, one of the world's top oil exporters, has warned for months the United States would move against it over terrorism but says it cooperates with Colombia against guerrillas and denies its ties with U.S. foes mean that it helps militants. The U.S. official said the Bush administration considers "the Venezuelan government showed a near total lack of cooperation with anti-terrorism efforts last year."
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Republican Intelligence, said in a statement: "The hostility shown by the Venezuelan leadership toward the United States along with its efforts to sow totalitarianism in the hemisphere, at the expense of the Venezuelan people, should be alarming to everyone."
#4
Now they need to stop Citgo from doing business here. If this country had any real seeds, we would find out what kind of economic impact this would have on Chavez.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/15/2006 16:05 Comments ||
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Like Castro without the beard, charisma or history.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali- born Dutch politician known for her criticism of Islam, said Monday that her life in the Netherlands had become untenable because of security issues and a controversy over reports that she had lied on her application for asylum in 1992.
Hirsi Ali, 36, said she would resign her seat in Parliament on Tuesday and speed up her intended departure for the United States, where she plans to take a job at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
A Muslim who has received frequent death threats from Islamic militants, Hirsi Ali is a gifted speaker and is easily one of the country's most famous politicians. But she has faced rising political pressure over charges that she lied to the immigration authorities when she fled from an arranged marriage in Somalia to hide in the Netherlands in 1992. Her critics accuse her of further polarizing the already difficult immigration debate and of alienating rather than defending Muslim women.
In a telephone interview from The Hague on Monday, she said she had learned that as a result of the asylum application controversy she might be stripped of her Dutch citizenship. She said that was the last straw in a series of setbacks that made her decide to leave for the United States a year earlier than planned.
In April, she was notified that she would have to vacate her secure government apartment in The Hague because her neighbors had won a lawsuit complaining that her presence exposed them to risk.
After living with bodyguards since 2002 and moving from place to place, she said the thought of being on the run again was difficult to bear, but not as difficult as the likelihood of losing her Dutch nationality.
"If necessary I can take the death threats, the eviction, the many attacks on my character," she said. "But I cannot deal with the idea of losing my Dutch nationality."
She had been told, she said, that the minister in charge of immigration had ordered a review of how she obtained her citizenship and that it be revoked if necessary.
She said she was baffled by the uproar over her asylum procedure because she had told the story in numerous interviews. In those interviews, she said Monday, she explained how she changed her birthdate and her last name, from Magan to Ali, when she fled to escape an arranged marriage "in case my father or my brother or my husband looked for me with bad intentions."
The issue came to the fore in recent days when a television documentary retraced her steps from Somalia to her family's exile in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Some political opponents said she should be expelled from Parliament and others said she should be forced to leave the country as other asylum seekers had.
"I'm now being picked on for lying, but I have admitted for years that I did that, that I changed my name and my birthdate," she said. When she was invited to join a conservative political party, VVD, and run for Parliament, she said she discussed the matter with the party leadership. "Everybody knew, it's a very old story," she said.
But the issue is very sensitive for the VVD because it has taken a hard line on immigration and introduced tough new citizenship tests. A number of immigrants have been expelled for failing to meet the criteria for political asylum.
"I was planning to move to the U.S. when my mandate ended next year," Hirsi Ali said Monday. "But now it's time to become a private citizen again." Being driven from her home, and now being under official investigation, "has made me bring my plans forward."
"I feel I can no longer function as a proper member of Parliament," she added.
As a soft-spoken but passionate defender of Muslim women's rights, she first won attention in 2002 when she became one of the first politicians to say that the government's costly programs to integrate Muslims in the Netherlands were misplaced because they kept women oppressed and isolated in the immigrant ghettoes. Death threats assailing her as a traitor to Islam began in 2002 and she has lived with a retinue of plainclothes government bodyguards ever since.
That protection, she said, saved her life. Theo van Gogh, with whom she made a short film denouncing violence against Muslim women, but who refused bodyguards, was killed by an Islamic radical in 2004 on an Amsterdam street.
Since then, her fame at home and abroad has grown, as have the threats against her. In Parliament, she said, she had already achieved much of what she wanted by pushing issues on to the agenda that were long hidden, such as honor killings, genital mutilation and widespread domestic violence among people in largely Muslim immigrant communities, many of them from rural areas in Turkey and Morocco.
Hirsi Ali was always an anomaly in Dutch politics who did not fit into the traditional left, center or right. Her glamour, skillful debating style and her fame gained her as many admirers as critics.
The Immigration Ministry could not be reached for questions about the investigation into reviewing her asylum application of 1992 and into the early period of her stay in the Netherlands, where she gained citizenship in 1997
Posted by: john ||
05/15/2006 19:12 ||
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Oops.. I see this is already posted
Posted by: john ||
05/15/2006 19:19 Comments ||
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Mods, please delete
Posted by: john ||
05/15/2006 19:23 Comments ||
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A person was critically wounded in a time-bomb explosion in Pakistani insurgency-hit province of Baluchistan on Sunday, said police. A time-bomb went off near a police station in Barkhan district, about 300 kilometers from Quetta, the provincial capital, police sources told KUNA. They said the explosion wounded a passerby seriously and damaged a nearby parked cart.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Unknown armed motorcyclists killed another government official in Pakistani northwest district on Sunday, said police sources. Asmatullah Babar, senior director of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) Development Authority, was gunned down in Dera Ismail Khan as he was coming out of his house, police sources told KUNA. Police suspected local Taliban militants hand behind the attack.
Cycles of violence seem to be their style, don't they?
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Unidentified people on Sunday shot dead an official at the Tehsil office in Jandola area of the South Waziristan tribal region, sources said. The attackers stormed the Jandola checkpost and entered the Tehsil office, killing Sultan Khan, a head muharrir. According to sources, the attack on the security forces official could have been provoked by a personal enmity. The political administration was investigating the incident, they added.
In a separate incident, unidentified people attacked security forces fort in North Waziristan, adding that no fatalities had been incurred. They said that five rockets were fired at the fort from nearby mountains in Datta Khel, near the Pakistan border with Afghanistan.
Probably another case of personal enmity. Firing rockets is just one of those quaint local customs.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Nawab Akbar Bugti has claimed that three FC personnel were killed and five injured in clashes with his men in Barboz on Sunday, Online reported. Also on Sunday, unidentified men killed Additional Dera Bugti SHO Liaquat Ali Cheema in the Osta Muhammad area when he was on way to his house. The killers fled. Cheemas body was sent to his native village in Punjab after an autopsy. Meanwhile, a bomb exploded in a town bazaar in Balochistan on Sunday, shattering windows at a barber shop and injuring one man, police said. The homemade bomb was planted in a drain in front of a shop in Rakhni.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The homemade bomb was planted in a drain in front of a shop in Rakhni.
A case has been registered against Nawab Akbar Bugti in connection with the murder of a government official who was kidnapped on Saturday along with two Levies force personnel and found dead on Sunday, Dera Bugti District Coordination Officer Abdul Samad Lasi said on Sunday. He said that a case of abduction had also been registered against 10 people, including a local MPA.
Lasi said that Naib Tehsildar Shahzada Khan Bugti was investigating a land ownership dispute between tribesmen loyal to Nawab Akbar Bugti and the pro-government Kalpar clan. He said that a Jamhoori Watan Party MPA had also called him, warning him to refrain from interfering in the dispute. Senator Shahid Bugti of the JWP expressed ignorance about the issue. He said the government had rehabilitated tribesmen of the Kalpar clan without settling longstanding disputes.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Foster always seemed like a happy drunk
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2006 16:34 Comments ||
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Coalition forces killed more than 40 terrorists and detained 13 suspected terrorists in various raids May 13 and yesterday throughout Iraq, military officials in Iraq reported.
Coalition forces conducted a coordinated ground and air attack against an enemy safe haven in Yusifiyah yesterday, killing more than 25 terrorists, detaining four, and destroying three safe houses and a vehicle loaded with weapons and ammunition.
Upon initiating the attack in the afternoon, coalition troops immediately killed two terrorists in response to hostile activity from a suspected safe house and an associated vehicle. Once the threat was suppressed by an air strike on both the car - resulting in secondary explosions - and the structure, ground troops searched the targeted areas. The troops found two dead terrorists, detained four suspects and provided medical treatment to three injured civilians.
One adult female and one teenage female were treated for wounds and medically evacuated with their uninjured maternal escort via helicopter to the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. Additionally, one girl was treated on-site for a superficial wound to the head. She required no further medical care and remained with her mother.
The terrorists fired at the departing helicopters, including the transport carrying the injured civilians. The ground forces called in close-air support to suppress the threat, and several sorties of fixed and rotary wing aircraft attacked enemy positions and killed about 20 terrorists.
During the fighting, terrorists in a truck tried to penetrate the security perimeter and were engaged by the ground troops. The three enemies who occupied the vehicle were killed. One was wearing a suicide vest and detonated it after he was shot by the ground troops, injuring no one and killing himself.
Elsewhere, coalition forces conducted a series of raids May 13 and yesterday near Latifiyah, killing known terrorist Abu Mustafa and 15 other suspected al Qaeda associates and detaining eight suspects. Abu Mustafa was wanted for his involvement in the shooting down of an AH-64 helicopter earlier this year.
In the evening on May 13, coalition forces initiated four associated raids. The initial raid resulted in the killing of Abu Mustafa and an unknown affiliate, who were located near Latifiyah, a village about 25 kilometers southeast of Baghdad.
Intelligence officials identified several other areas connected to Abu Mustafa's cell members. Coalition troops assaulted three of those sites, located about six kilometers north of where Abu Mustafa had been killed the day before. Upon arrival at the first site, coalition forces engaged more than 15 al Qaeda terrorists who were attempting to establish defensive positions or escape. Coalition forces confirmed 14 suspected terrorists were killed and also discovered Abu Mustafa's body, which had been moved to this new site.
Coalition troops also found several women and children inside the house. Two women and two children were inadvertently wounded by shrapnel. The troops immediately treated the injured. One of the women and one child required no further treatment. After initial treatment for a wound to her abdomen, the second woman, who is pregnant, was medically evacuated to the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad for additional medical care. The other child, 20 months old, was also evacuated to the hospital with her uninjured mother. All evacuated to the hospital are in stable condition.
FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 7, 2006) -- If anyone was proud to be labeled hard-headed, its Pfc. Fred M. Linck. The 19-year-old from Westbrook, Conn., took an enemy shot to the head and walked away with little more than a sore noggin and a white bandage.
Linck, of 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5, was struck by a single enemy bullet May 5.
It seemed like just another day in the city of Fallujah, Linck said, an infantryman assigned to C Company. But everything changed for me that day.
The young Marine just got off of a security post and was tasked to be part of a reaction force. The force was gearing up to respond to a call for help in the city.
We got some intelligence stating that there was a possible improvised explosive device on the corner of the main street in Fallujah, Linck said. My team of Marines reacted to the call and showed up to the site. We immediately dismounted our vehicles and set up a cordon of the area.
Some of the other men in the team didnt want to believe that it was a normal mission for them, in fact they had planned on it being much more than that.
Something told me that this was going to be a set up, a pretty usual tactic for the insurgents to use against us, said Lance Cpl. Randon O. Hogen, a fellow infantrymen and member of Lincks fire team.
Hogens gut instincts were right. Somewhere in the shadows of the concrete buildings, an insurgent was waiting for the Marines to come into his view.
I was running back across the street after we had confirmed that the IED we responded to was in fact not one, when I heard the shot, said Lance Cpl . Kelvin J. Grisales, fire team leader and friend of Linck.
A single shot cracked through the air. Everyone jolted and not even Linck, who was hit, knew what happened.
After the shot rang out, I remember hearing someone screaming Man down, Man down, Linck said. I realized a second later that man was me, I was on the ground.
It took a couple seconds for everything to appear clear to Linck. The sounds of Marines calling for help werent for anyone but him, but he was ready to get up and fight.
I was pretty scared when I realized that I had just taken a round to the head, but the scariest part was that I was thinking about it and I felt fine, Linck said, who has only served with the battalion for a few months. It felt as if I had fallen and hit my head, thats it.
The rest of his team did not know his status. They didnt take chances and followed their training, evacuating him out of the area.
When we picked him up, he grabbed my hand and told me that he was pretty nervous, said 22-year-old Grisales, from Hartford, Conn. All I could do was to try to reassure him that he would be alright, at the same time I was trying to do the same for myself.
Linck was transferred directly from the battlefield to the nearest hospital where he was treated and released without even a stitch in his head.
The issued helmet he wore stopped the majority of the round from penetrating. A small piece of fragmentation from the round pierced through the headband inside of the helmet, causing a small laceration on his forehead.
It was such a relief for us when we pulled up to the hospital and we found out that he was okay, Grisales said.
I thank God that it happened the way that it did, Hogen added.
Linck doesnt discount Divine intervention or luck, but trusts his gear more now than ever.
I know for sure that if it wasnt for that helmet, I wouldnt be standing here right now, Linck said. It pays to wear all the gear the way it is supposed to be worn.
It is one thing to hear about what our gear is capable of, but this just makes it a reality, Hogen said. It did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Lincks since returned to duty with a new outlook on life.
It is kind of like a second lease of life, he said. I want to make sure I do everything right.
#1
Nice, and good for him! I thought even modern helmets only stopped fragmentations and low-powered rounds, and that most rifle calibers went through them right away?
#4
Modern helmets are guaranteed to stop 9mm rounds dead on. Though not guaranteed to stop 7.62x39mm or 5.56x45mm rounds, depending on range and angle, they will often stop 7.62x51mm NATO and, in this case, 7.62x54mm.
Posted by: ed ||
05/15/2006 10:21 Comments ||
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#5
I wouldn't worry about that guy. At the rate they are killing them, they'll get around to him sooner or later. All you can hope for is one of those messy, phosphorous, fragmenting, magnecite type deaths for that guy.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein refused to enter a plea at his trial on Monday after he was formally charged with ordering the killing and torture of hundreds of Shi'ite villagers, telling the judge he was still Iraq's president.
The detailed charges read out by Judge Raouf Abdel Rahman stemmed from the killing of 148 Shi'ites after an attempt on Saddam's life in 1982 in the village of Dujail.
The ousted president was accused of ordering the killing and torture of hundreds in the village, including women and children, and that he sent helicopters and planes to pound Dujail, north of Baghdad.
Wearing a dark suit and white shirt, Saddam smiled as he listened to the charges, holding a Koran in his left hand.
"This statement cannot influence me or shake a hair of my head. What matters to me is the Iraqi people and myself," Saddam said. "I am president of Iraq by the will of the Iraqi people."
Replying the judge said: "You were, but not now."
Rahman said some of the men and women taken prisoner in Dujail by Saddam's security forces were tortured with "blows to the head and electric shocks" and that five died under torture.
He also read out the names of 32 of the 148 who were under 18 and therefore should not have been executed under then-existing Iraqi and international law, the judge said.
The court then called Saddam's half-brother Barzan al- Tikriti, former chief of the feared intelligence security forces, who dismissed charges read out to him were "lies."
If found guilty, Saddam, 69, faces a death sentence.
Six other co-accused are also being tried for the Dujail case, the first of many trials the ousted leader could face.
Witnesses for the defense were expected to testify later in the day.
#3
Don't swing him just yet. Watching him sit through a few more (bigger, more dramatic) cases will do everyone good. Anfal case should start before the current one's finished. It's big. Hopefully the 1991 case will commence before Anfal's done. This is the biggest TV event in Arab history (virtually all pan-Arab satellite and many large domestic channels carry it without interruption) - and the impact can only be in our interest. Like much else here, not right away, though. Let's have more patience than the worthless political class inside the Beltway.
#4
Thanks Verlaine. I also find it interesting that the Anfal trial will begin before the current trial is over. This way, the viewers won't lose interest because Saddam's fate is still to be decided.
Posted by: ed ||
05/15/2006 16:03 Comments ||
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#5
When did you get back in-country Verlaine? I thought you wuz gonna hang here for a bit.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) Insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter south of Baghdad and killed two soldiers, the U.S. military said Monday. Their deaths, along with those of three other soldiers and two Marines, brought the weekend toll to seven U.S. service members.
Elsewhere, eight Iraqis were killed, including four teachers on their way to school and a civilian struck by a roadside bomb that hit an oil tanker, sending black smoke billowing over central Baghdad.
In southern Iraq, militants fired more than 30 mortar rounds at a British military camp, wounding four soldiers.
The helicopter attack occurred Sunday during fighting in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of the Iraqi capital, the military said in a brief statement.
It was the second helicopter shot down in the past six weeks over that area, known as the "Triangle of Death" as the scene of a large number of insurgent attacks. An Apache helicopter went down there on April 1.
The two U.S. Marines died Sunday during unspecified "enemy action" in Anbar Province, the area of western Iraq that is the heart of the Sunni-led insurgency, the U.S. command said. Two U.S. Army soldiers also died Sunday in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
The six fatalities raised to at least 2,443 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the Iraq war began in 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press. Another U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday.
The mortar barrage came at about 4:30 a.m. Monday at Camp Abu Naji in Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, said British spokeswoman Capt. Kelly Goodall.
One of the British soldiers was badly hurt, but the others' injuries were not serious, said Holly Wheeler, a British Ministry of Defense spokeswoman in London.
The attack raised the total of British casualties in Iraq over the past nine days to six soldiers killed and five wounded. The other attacks also occurred in southern Iraq, an area that has been far more peaceful than central and northern Iraq where U.S. forces are based.
On Saturday, two British soldiers were killed and one was wounded by a roadside bomb as they patrolled in their armored vehicle north of Basra city.
On May 6, four British soldiers died when their helicopter crashed in Basra, apparently downed by a missile. Jubilant Iraqi residents pelted British rescuers with stones, hurled firebombs and shouted slogans in support of a radical Shiite cleric. Five Iraqi civilians, including a child, died and about 30 were wounded in the melee as Shiite gunmen and British soldiers exchanged fire.
On Monday, a drive-by shooting at about 8:30 a.m. killed four teachers en route to their school in a village near Balad Ruz, a town 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said. The attackers and the victims were both riding in minibuses, the private vehicles that charge small fees to transport the general public.
In central Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol missed the officers but killed one civilian, wounded four and set fire to an oil tanker parked nearby on Monday. "The explosion caused a huge fire," said police Capt. Ziyad Naji. One man died in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad.
Roadside bombs exploded in two cities north and south of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi civilian and a police officer, and wounding five Iraqis, police said.
On Sunday, widespread violence in Iraq killed dozens of people, including 14 Iraqis who died in a double suicide car bombing on the main road to Baghdad's airport.
The violence came as talks on a new Cabinet bogged down in sectarian divisions only a week before the constitutional deadline for completion of the process.
There had been hope that Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki would fill at least some Cabinet posts when parliament convened Sunday, perhaps even taking on for himself contentious roles such as the interior and defense ministries.
Al-Maliki's mandate to form a Cabinet expires May 22. Should he fail, President Jalal Talabani would have 15 days to choose someone else to try to form a Cabinet. The constitution is unclear on whether he could pick al-Maliki again.
Lawmakers have struggled since Dec. 15 parliamentary elections to put together a national unity government, which many Iraqis and the U.S. government hope will lessen sectarian tensions and undermine support for the insurgency.
#2
Given to Sunni Al Qaeda. But then 25 years of Iranian behavior leaves little doubt who they are. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
In southern Iraq, militants fired more than 30 mortar rounds at a British military camp, wounding four soldiers.
That's an awful lot of mortar fire without the the mortar crew being destroyed. Anyone know British counterbattery capability?
Posted by: ed ||
05/15/2006 8:05 Comments ||
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#3
This was a HUGE RAID....we killed 25 of the terrorists. [link removed, busted our formatting AoS ]
#7
It's time to start blowing up Iranian oil terminals. Piss on the world markets. Cut their money off. Inject turmoil into the Iranian domestic scene. When are those wimps going to up the ante?
The Iraqi capital witnessed much violence and bloodshed Sunday, with some 31 people killed and 42 wounded in bombing that occurred in different parts of Baghdad. An Iraqi police source told KUNA that death toll of the bombing which took place in a local market near the Diyala bridge, southern Baghdad, rose to five, with 16 wounded. Meanwhile, the US Army announced in a statement the death of 14 people and the wounding of some six others in two suicide car bombings at a check point near Baghdad Airport.
Another statement by the US Army said its forces destroyed five militant safe houses in Ramadi, western Iraq, killing three and arresting four others. Furthermore, an Iraqi police source said in a press statement that one civilian was killed in Mosul and seven were wounded when a suicide bomber drove a booby-trapped car into a US Army patrol vehicle. The same source said confrontations between Iraqi police and militants in Al-Nour district in Mosul resulted in the death of a policeman and the wounding of three others. A wounded militant was arrested.
Meanwhile in Irbil, an Iraqi police source told KUNA that unknown militants opened fire at members of the Kurdistan National Union Party as they were leaving their headquarters in eastern Kirkuk, killing Kamal Jalal Hassan and wounding Ahmad Khourshid. The source added that an explosion in Kirkuk's celebrations square wounded eight Iraqi policemen, four with severe injuries. Also in Irbil, director of the city's electrical network told reporters that a large fire had broken out in the electricity generator after a cable exploded due to the great electrical tension. He said firemen were still trying to put out the fire after electrical current was shut down, adding that this would affect supply to the city, half of which depends on this station.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Both FNC and even CNN are reporting that several Shia shrines or holy sites were attacked - maybe Zarkey and his tennis shoes are trying to stir up Shia-Sunni shennanigans again???
#2
Doubt it mendiola. If blowing up the one, if not the, holiest shrine to Shia muslims back in Febuary didn't do it a couple attacks like this sure won't.
Posted by: Charles ||
05/15/2006 5:18 Comments ||
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Two US soldiers were killed on Sunday due to a bomb blast that targeted their Army vehicle in East Baghdad, said a statement by the US forces. The statement mentioned that the American soldiers were part of The Multi National forces' (MNF) fourth division patrolling the Eastern region of the capital when the bomb blast killed them. The statement added that the incident was under further investigation and added that the names of the deceased soldiers will be revealed to their families later on.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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GAZA CITY - The radical Palestinian group Islamic Jihad vowed on Monday to carry out further suicide attacks to avenge the killing of six Palestinians, including two of its leaders, by Israeli troops.
"We must have Dire Revenge!"
We confirm that the occupation crime will make us stronger and not weaken the resolve of our fighters. The enemy will not rest easy on our land, its armed wing, the Al Quds Brigades, said in a statement.
We confirm to the criminal enemy that we will continue our martyrdom operations and nobody can stop the martyrs, it added. We will succeed in facing up to the agression until we are victorious.
The Abu Rish Brigades and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, two armed offshoots of the former ruling Fatah party, said they had fired rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel to protest against Sundays killings in the West Bank. An Israeli army spokesman said three rockets exploded overnight but that there were no reports of any damage or casualties.
Five Palestinians, including the two Jihad leaders were shot dead by Israeli troops during clashes in the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya on Sunday.
A security guard outside the local Palestinian Authority intelligence headquarters in the nearby city of Jenin was also shot dead by Israeli troops.
Among the dead in Qabatiya was Elias Al Ashkar, a leader of Jihads armed wing and who Israel held responsible for the last eight suicide bombings.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/15/2006 08:42 ||
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#4
"we threaten to continue catching bullets with our bodies!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2006 10:25 Comments ||
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#5
These fuckheads boasted about having 60 "martyrs" ready for action last month, so all they are doing in repeating the same threats. Meanwhile, the Israelis are making it harder and harder for them by taking out the support networks and completing the separation barrier. I expect Jihad to announce a cease-fire when it can no longer penetrate Israeli security. This is what Hamas did, even though those fuckwits are still trying to smuggle in boomers via the Sinai (with no success, thus far).
(IsraelNN.com) The home of a senior Fatah terrorist, Salah Kadas, was bombed in Gaza, apparently by rival Hamas terrorists. Kadas was unharmed, and also managed to escape a kidnapping attempt two days ago.
Increasing tension between Hamas, which effectively rules the Palestinian Authority, and Fatah, whose leader Mahmoud Abbas still nominally controls the Authority as chief, has resulted in a series of violent clashes in recent weeks.
#7
Not much about Gerbil Rajoub either. Both are probably practicing their environment-blending techniques, or stocking up on a chopper fuel just in case.
A preventive security officer and a 13 years old child have been severely injured on Sunday when unknown armed men opened fire at them in the Beach Camp, western Gaza. Medical sources said the child is in serious condition and undergoing surgery after his kidney and right lung stopped working due to the bullet he received. The officer was meanwhile shot in the right thigh in a separate attack as he was leaving his camp home. Eyewitnesses said ten unknown armed men nabbed the officer's weapon and a telecommunication device before escaping the scene.
This is the seventh such incident this week on preventive security officers. Many officers working in Jebalia Camp northern Gaza were attacked with bombs planted in front of their homes. Another explosion took place a few days ago close to an officer's house in Jebalia Camp where a Martyrs brigade militant aborted an attempt to plant a bomb targeting another officer.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Israeli forces ended on Sunday its military operations in the Qabatya town close to Jenin, and leaving behind five dead Palestinians and one demolished house. Eyewitnesses said the Israeli forces destroyed the house which sheltered the five Palestinian fighters before they were all killed. Among those who were killed was a Palestinian activist from the military wing of the Islamic Jihad, Elias Al-ashqar. Israel claim Al-ashqar was behind several attacks on Israel. Earlier, the Israeli forces have raided the Palestinian security office in Jenin and killed one security officer when clashes erupted afterward.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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IDF troops and elite border policemen surrounded a home in the village of Kabatiya, near Jenin, on Sunday after receiving intelligence that top Islamic Jihad terrorist Elias Ashkar was holed up inside. After the troops encircled the home, they were fired upon. They returned fire, killing Ashkar and four others.
Earlier in the day, a Palestinian policeman was shot dead by troops during an arrest raid in Jenin.
Among the dead in Kabatiya were Said Hanisheh, 24, an Aksa Martyrs Brigades operative wanted by Israel, and his brother Mujahed, 25, who Palestinians said was not known to be a terror suspect. Later, armored bulldozers were brought in to demolish the house. Troops later shot dead another Palestinian, Jihad Kumayl, 19, who was throwing rocks at the soldiers during the operation
Israeli troops have killed seven Palestinians in two separate raids, in the deadliest single day of violence in the West Bank in several weeks. In the first raid Palestinian security officials say soldiers encircled a building next to Palestinian intelligence headquarters in Jenin on Sunday. Gunshots were heard and the bloodstained body of Ali Jabarin, a former member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was seen lying in the street immediately after the shooting.
Elsewhere six other Palestinians were killed in the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, during a raid which ended with the Israeli soldiers bulldozing a house which had been the focus of the fighting. Security sources said that at least one of the victims was a member of Islamic Jihad.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestincian president, denounced the raids calling on the international community the Middle East Quartet to intervene and demand an immediate halt to Israeli attacks. Abbas was travelling to Russia on Sunday for talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi with President Vladimir Putin. Israeli military sources confirmed the clashes but were unable to comment on the casualties. The army said that in both places troops seeking to carry out arrests were fired upon and returned fire.
Palestinian security sources said the Israeli raid was apparently targetted at Mahmoud Saadi, the overall leader of Islamic Jihad in the Jenin area. Saadi was hit in the chest and legs but his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening, the sources said.
That's too bad. Now they'll have to come back for him later.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Actually when the leader of a group like Islamic Jihad is badly injured, it is a major burden for that group - in some ways a bigger loss than if the person was killed.
For one thing, the terrorist group has to assign some of their forces to bodyguard both the person and the place they are treated (whereas if the person is in good health the second of these bodyguard teams can be deployed elsewhere).
For another thing, the injured terrorist may mumble stuff to the medical people treating him and this can be converted into actionable intel since Israel probably has a number of agents placed in paleo medical facilities.
Fighters of a separatist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels currently negotiating peace with Manila rescued a nine-year old girl kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf bandits in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, officials said. Officials said rebel forces captured two men holding Donna May Ramos and rescued the girl Saturday evening in the hinterland village of Limbo Upas in Tipo-Tipo town, a known stronghold of the MILF. They said the rebels were working closely with the authorities. The fate of the two men was unknown, but the rebels handed the girl to authorities. The girl was rescued alright and there is a good coordination between security and rebel forces, Brig. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, the islands military commander, told Arab News.
He said politicians headed by former Tuburan town mayor Hajarun Jamiri and Lamitan mayor Roderick Furigay and the islands police chief Clifford Gairanod helped in the rescue. He said the rebels, headed by Bonie Salih, seized the kidnappers when they tried to hide their hostage in Tipo-Tipo town. Unknown to the kidnappers, military and police authorities and MILF forces were already working closely to recover the girl safely, and we did, Ferrer said. Authorities said the girl daughter of Councilor Donnel Ramos of Lamitan town was kidnapped May 10 by two men identified as Jaid Awalal and Jaljani Isnilon while playing with a friend in Lamitan town. Her family opened private negotiations to seek the girls freedom without paying ransom. The victims father told authorities they would not file criminal charges against the kidnappers. We asked Donnel if he would file charges against the kidnappers, and he said no and they only wanted to see the girl freed safely, Furigay said.
Sounds like a nice bit of propaganda, doesn't it? MILF heroically rescues little girl, Abu Bad Guyz conveniently get away, no ransom paid. Right.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
another ameture hour minute
Posted by: bk ||
05/15/2006 12:02 Comments ||
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At least 12 people were killed in northern Sri Lanka Sunday as the security situation further deteriorated in the north and eastern parts of the island nation. Indo-Asian News Agency reported from capital Colombo quoting pro-rebel Tamilnet website as saying that the incidents had occurred on the islands off the main Jaffna peninsula and the Sri Lankan Navy was responsible for the attacks.
A local judge has visited the locations where the attacks are reported to have taken place and so far there is not independent confirmation about the casualty figures, the agency said. Navy spokesman Commander D. K. P. Dassanayake Sunday denied in Colombo that Navy was involved in the attacks, but claimed that there was a battle between the rebels and the Navy in the area and they were awaiting a report on the incident.
Since April 7 the security situation in the north and eastern parts of the Sri Lanka has further deteriorated with more than 250 deaths of security personnel, civilians and rebels, according to the news agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Sri Lanka police asked for help from the public on Sunday to identify a woman suicide bomber who attacked the islands army chief killing 10 people. The police Criminal Investigations Department said in a statement that the bomber had yet to be identified contrary to earlier claims that she was a 21-year-old pregnant woman from the islands north. The woman suicide cadre is believed to be in the age group of 35 to 40 years and about five feet three inches tall, the CID said. The CID also released a pen-sketch of the woman based on forensic modeling.
Logs at the army headquarters showed the bomber entered the military compound and staged the attack last month after posing as a soldiers pregnant wife to take advantage of maternity day at the army hospital. However, a medical expert has said that tests showed that the woman was not pregnant, contrary to media reports at the time. Police said the bombers mobile phone was destroyed but they managed to recover the SIM card that has been sent abroad for analysis and to trace the calls she made and received just before the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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Bandits disguised as policemen executed 12 bound men by a southern Iranian roadside and strung a wounded 12-year-old boy from an electricity pylon, state media reported on Sunday. The killings happened on the desert road between the southern cities of Kerman and Bam. Brutal bandit attacks are rare so far from Irans lawless borders, but common along the Afghan and Pakistani frontier. The motive for the killings was unclear but the murders raised concerns about the safety of a road often used by tourists visiting historical sites in Kerman province.
Kermans provincial Governor Abdolmohammad Raoufinejad was quoted by state television saying four cars, later found burned out, had been held up at gunpoint at 9 p.m. on Saturday night, 35 km (22 miles) west of Bam. Eight attackers bound and blindfolded their victims before shooting them in the head, television reported. Eleven of the corpses were flung into a ditch. One man later died of his injuries in hospital. Two people escaped with injuries, television reported. It was not immediately clear if the boy strung to the pylon survived. Raoufinejad said the gunmen were wearing police uniforms. Provincial officials in Kerman were not immediately available to comment about a motive for the attack. Regional police were also unavailable for comment.
Most banditry in Iran is associated with heavily armed drug traffickers. The main thoroughfare for transporting Afghan opium to Europe passes through Bam. However, most drug-running violence happens in the southeastern border province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which neighbours Kerman province.
Terrorist elements named Jundollah (Gods soldiers), headed by Abdolmalek Rigi, claimed responsibility for the attack, Gen. Eskandar Momeni, a deputy commander of Irans police force told Iranian media. Jundollah are Sunni Muslim militants who beheaded an Iranian security agent last June and killed 22 people near the southeastern city of Zahedan in March. Iranian officials say Jundollah commander Rigi was a cell leader of Osama Bin Ladens Al-Qaeda network in Iran. Jundollah hail from the eastern border province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which is plagued by violence associated with the traffic of opium from Afghanistan to Europe.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
These predominantly Hanafi Sunni "banditos" [think Baloch] wear turbans and flop house beards, the reason I can type this with some certainty is that they have a publicity agent who is posting rather gruesome vids on the 'net.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A Taleban commander and his deputy were among 11 rebel fighters killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan, which also left five policemen dead, a provincial official said on Monday. Eight policemen and five Taleban were wounded in the hours-long clash in Kandahar province on Sunday and three rebels were arrested, a provincial government spokesman, Mohammad Daud Ahmadi, told AFP.
US military spokesman confirmed that a rocket had been fired late on Saturday at the main US-led coalition base at an airfield in the Kandahar city, adding that no casualties had been incurred.
A gun battle between suspected Taliban militants and police broke out Sunday after the law enforcement officials surrounded a small village in Kandahar, a government spokesman said. Four police and up to eleven militants were killed. The four-hour gun battle also left four police officers wounded, said Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial governor. He said the militants left three bodies behind and took eight with them when they fled the village in the Panjwayi district. Police surrounded the village after receiving a tip that Taliban militants were there, Ahmadi said.
In the midst of one of the worst factional fighting in Somalia, the newly established anti-terror alliance sealed off Mogadishu by manning checkpoints at all roads going into the city today. The spokesman for the alliance, Mr. 
Six people have been killed after protesters in Darfur opposed to the recent peace deal between rebels and the Sudanese government clashed with police. The deadliest clashes occurred in and around camps for internally displaced persons in South Darfur state, where three civilians reportedly died in an exchange of gunfire. The clashes erupted on on Saturday after protesters beat to death a military intelligence agent inside the Kass camp, Sudan's Al Rai al-Aam daily reported. Police acting on a tip dispatched a task force to rescue the man, but the team ran into a group of protesters moving towards a nearby Africa Union (AU) camp and a gun battle ensued, the paper added.
The bodies of 18 children and three women, apparently massacred by Islamic insurgents, have been found in a cave in Algeria, police said. The bodies were found at Jijel, 360 kilometres east of the capital Algiers, when troops raided a cave network in search of insurgents, killing five of them, police said in a statement. 
A Rajshahi court yesterday sentenced 13 militants of 
TERRORISTS from al-Qaeda have infiltrated Britain's security services, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.
A person was critically wounded in a time-bomb explosion in Pakistani insurgency-hit province of Baluchistan on Sunday, said police. A time-bomb went off near a police station in Barkhan district, about 300 kilometers from Quetta, the provincial capital, police sources told KUNA. They said the explosion wounded a passerby seriously and damaged a nearby parked cart.
Unknown armed motorcyclists killed another government official in Pakistani northwest district on Sunday, said police sources. Asmatullah Babar, senior director of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) Development Authority, was gunned down in 
Unidentified people on Sunday shot dead an official at the Tehsil office in 
Nawab 
A case has been registered against Nawab 
The Iraqi capital witnessed much violence and bloodshed Sunday, with some 31 people killed and 42 wounded in bombing that occurred in different parts of Baghdad. An Iraqi police source told KUNA that death toll of the bombing which took place in a local market near the Diyala bridge, southern Baghdad, rose to five, with 16 wounded. Meanwhile, the US Army announced in a statement the death of 14 people and the wounding of some six others in two suicide car bombings at a check point near Baghdad Airport.
Two US soldiers were killed on Sunday due to a bomb blast that targeted their Army vehicle in East Baghdad, said a statement by the US forces. The statement mentioned that the American soldiers were part of The Multi National forces' (MNF) fourth division patrolling the Eastern region of the capital when the bomb blast killed them. The statement added that the incident was under further investigation and added that the names of the deceased soldiers will be revealed to their families later on.
A preventive security officer and a 13 years old child have been severely injured on Sunday when unknown armed men opened fire at them in the Beach Camp, western Gaza. Medical sources said the child is in serious condition and undergoing surgery after his kidney and right lung stopped working due to the bullet he received. The officer was meanwhile shot in the right thigh in a separate attack as he was leaving his camp home. Eyewitnesses said ten unknown armed men nabbed the officer's weapon and a telecommunication device before escaping the scene.
Israeli troops have killed seven Palestinians in two separate raids, in the deadliest single day of violence in the West Bank in several weeks. In the first raid Palestinian security officials say soldiers encircled a building next to Palestinian intelligence headquarters in Jenin on Sunday. Gunshots were heard and the bloodstained body of 
Fighters of a separatist group 
At least 12 people were killed in northern Sri Lanka Sunday as the security situation further deteriorated in the north and eastern parts of the island nation. Indo-Asian News Agency reported from capital Colombo quoting pro-rebel Tamilnet website as saying that the incidents had occurred on the islands off the main Jaffna peninsula and the Sri Lankan Navy was responsible for the attacks.
Sri Lanka police asked for help from the public on Sunday to identify a woman suicide bomber who attacked the islands army chief killing 10 people. The police Criminal Investigations Department said in a statement that the bomber had yet to be identified contrary to earlier claims that she was a 21-year-old pregnant woman from the islands north. The woman suicide cadre is believed to be in the age group of 35 to 40 years and about five feet three inches tall, the CID said. The CID also released a pen-sketch of the woman based on forensic modeling.
