[ADN Kronos] Up to 40 Taliban fighters, including a commander, were killed during operations in various areas of volatile southern Helmand province during Afghanistan's presidential and provincial elections, a police chief said on Friday, quoted by Afghan news agency Pajhwok.
Asadullah Sherzad told Pajhwok seven insurgents were killed on Thursday while planting bombs on a road in Musa Qala district, a Taliban stronghold.
Eight militants were killed in Sangin district and a dozen others in an air strike carried out by the NATO-led Internal Security Assistance Forces in the Tarkha Nawar area.
Mullah Sattar, a rebel commander, was among eight fighters killed in Khan Nashin district, added Sherzad, who claimed five others were killed in Chanjeer area of Nad Ali district.
A police officer and four civilians were injured in the clashes. Col. Sherzad said five civilians were killed on Thursday when a landmine exploded in Nad Ali district.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi claimed they blew up several tanks belonging to foreign forces and killed dozens of Afghan and international soldiers in Greshk, Nawa, Sangin and Musa Qala districts.
Eleven election workers were killed in armed attacks across Afghanistan during polling, the Independent Election Commission said on Friday in a statement received by Pajhwok.
Eight Afghan soldiers were killed and 25 others wounded in 135 rebel attacks and bomb explosions throughout the country, Afghan defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told journalists.
Nine police officers and nine civilians were also killed and more than a dozen wounded in the latest attacks, according to the interior ministry.
Afghan intelligence foiled 29 attacks planned by the insurgents to disrupt the elections, Amrullah Saleh, chief of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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[ADN Kronos] Only hours after polling stations closed in Afghanistan, an unmanned Italian drone aircraft detected a series of roadside bombs planted in the western province of Farah where Italian soldiers are based.
"There were many of these devices, which had been planted about 500 metres apart," said General Rosario Castellano, commander of Italy's Lightning Brigade within Regional Command West.
The Regional Command West area covers western Afghanistan and 2,500 Italian soldiers are deployed there in the NATO-led peacekeeping force.
There are currently three Italian Predator jets at RCW's Camp Arena base camp in the western province of Herat, and the drones operate throughout Afghanistan.
A total of 56 roadside bombs were uncovered in western Afghanistan between April and July, compared with 27 found in the same period last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Ah - fine Italian aeroplane, keep a the boys safe ! - Break out the vino we have something to celibrate, Bravo.
Posted by: Don Vito de Chicago ||
08/22/2009 15:33 Comments ||
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[Asharq al-Aswat] An insurgent attack on a peacekeeping base sparked gunbattles that killed at least 24 people Friday, as the undermanned African peacekeeping force tried to maintain the government's tenuous hold on Somalia's battered capital. Mogadishu residents cowered in their homes before dawn as mortars slammed into the seaside capital and splintered the sprawling Bakara Market, where traders were setting up their goods for the day.
"Hundreds of well-armed insurgents came to our district with minibuses and pickup trucks and immediately they started firing toward the government troops and an African Union base," Mogadishu resident Abdi Haji Ahmed told The Associated Press by telephone. "We have been ducking under our concrete balcony for hours."
Wounded civilians, their clothing smeared with blood, were helped into cars. Alongside one traffic junction, three corpses lay in the dirt near a pair of African Union tanks.
Six people were killed at the Bakara market Friday, witnesses said. Ali Muse, the coordinator of Mogadishu's ambulance service, said another 18 bodies had been transported Friday.
The al-Shabab insurgent group, which has foreign fighters in its ranks, operates openly in the capital and seeks to overthrow the government and impose a strict form of Islam in Somalia. Al-Shabab spokesman Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said his forces had attacked the African Union base because peacekeepers had rolled into rebel-controlled areas early Friday.
"They provoked us by coming into our areas, so we have a right to attack them in their bases," Rage said.
Government troops and African Union peacekeepers hold only a few blocks of Mogadishu, but they still control key government buildings as well as the port and airport.
African Union spokesman Bahoku Barigye said no peacekeepers were killed or wounded.
Friday's bloodshed came one day after fighting killed at least 40 people in central Somalia, where government forces are jockeying for position as rebels gain ground.
Witnesses also reported seeing troops from neighboring Ethiopia roll into the Somali town of Belet Weyne, a development that would enrage insurgents who saw Ethiopia as an occupying force after it helped drive out Islamists from power in Somalia in 2006. The witnesses said they identified the soldiers by their uniforms and their trucks with Ethiopian license plates, but the government has denied their presence.
Belet Weyne is militarily important because it is near the Ethiopian border and serves as a link between southern Somalia and the agriculturally rich central region.
Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other. Many experts fear the country's lawlessness could provide a haven for Al Qaeda, offering a place for terrorists to train and gather strength, much like Afghanistan in the 1990s. The United States accuses al-Shabab of having ties to the terror network, which al-Shabab denies.
Attempts to stabilize the country have failed amid an Islamist insurgency, continual splintering and reforming of alliances and a tangled web of clan loyalties.
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was elected president in January in hopes that he could unite the country's feuding factions, but the violence has continued.
As of June 30, the AU force in Mogadishu had 4,300 troops from Uganda and Burundi, just 54 percent of its authorized strength of 8,000.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Four policemen were killed in a pair of suicide bombings on Friday in Chechnya's capital Grozny hours after rebels in the restive republic declared "economic war" on Russia and claimed responsibility for a recent dam disaster and a bomb in Ingushetia.
"The two suicide attackers came up to police cars and blew themselves up. Each car had two police officers in it. Four police are dead," Magomedov said.
The blasts took place about 15 minutes apart in the Leninsky district of Grozny, one in front of a food store and the other in front of a cafe, Magomedov said.
A Kremlin source contacted by Reuters dismissed the rebels declaration of an "economic war," posted on a website, saying he would not comment on what he described as an "idiotic" claim. Russian markets also shrugged off the news.
The rebels' statement, signed by the "Battalion of Martyrs," was posted on the kavkazcenter.com website, a site which claims to represent Chechen rebels.
The statement said the main Chechen rebel leader in hiding, Doku Umarov, who seeks an Islamic state in the north Caucasus, had decided to step up a campaign of economic war on Russia.
It said groups of fighters had been sent across Russia for attacks that would focus on gas and oil pipelines, power plants and electricity lines.
On Monday morning, within hours of each other, a giant Siberian dam was seriously damaged by an uncontrolled torrent of water pouring through the machine room and more than 20 people were killed when a suicide truck bomb rammed a police station in the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia.
Investigators probing the dam incident ruled out foul play early in their work and until now, nobody has suggested that a bomb could have caused the damage. Fourteen bodies have been retrieved from the dam disaster and 60 people are still missing.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Hmmm...the islamobeasties are attacking the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans. Maybe the targets should take off the gloves. I was never inclined to nation building in any case.
[Geo News] Eleven terrorists were killed in a clash with security forces here in Tehsil Yaka Ghand in Mohmand Agency, said FC sources on Friday. A number of hideouts of the militants were also destroyed when security forces targeted them with heavy shelling in Suprai, Bahaikor and Mullah Ghani. According to sources, explosives planted at Chanda in Tehsil Halimzai went off with a blast, however, no report of any casualties was received.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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[The News (Pak)] Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl) has accused the NWFP government of killing scores of religious scholars and demanded the release of 120 activists of the party forthwith.
Speaking at a news conference after a meeting of the provincial executive council and district heads of the party, JUI-F Provincial President Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan alleged a number of non-militant religious scholars had been arrested during the military operation in Malakand Division and several of them were killed in custody.
He alleged that the spokesman for banned Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammadi Ameer Izzat Khan, Maulana Mohammad Alam, Maulana Fazle Haq, Maulana Liaqat, Maulana Mohammad Ameen and Maulana Mohammad Yaqub had been killed after their arrest.
He said that 10-15 religious seminaries and mosques were destroyed during the operation, while more than 120 activists of the JUI and religious scholars were still under detention. He said the government should immediately announce reconstruction of the demolished seminaries and mosques. The government should also release all the detained "innocent" people. The JUI-F leader condemned the military operation in the settled districts of the Frontier and adjacent tribal belt and said the use of force could not be a solution to any problem.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] The suicide bomber holed up at a building in a Kohat area, blew himself up, when police started a sting operation to catch him, police sources told Friday. The building was harmed in the blast. The bomber attacked police with hand grenade, when police started the operation to capture him. The police tear-gassed the building to force him come out of the building. It should be mentioned that a suspected youth was spotted and then he was given a chase; on which, he entered a narrow lane here and captured a youth, Safdar, as hostage. However, SafdarÂ--owner of the house-- came out of the house safely. Afterwards, police decided to launch operation to capture the bomber.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I guess it's time to chalk another up for the "72 virgin review board".
[Iran Press TV Latest] Following the death of a leader of the sectarian Sunni group, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), his followers indulge in an orgy of violence against Shia Muslims in Karachi, killing eight.
Ali Sher Haidari, the supreme leader of the illegal gang died last week amid a bitter battle for the leadership of the group against another faction led by Muhammad Ahmad Ladehyanoy.
Haidari had led Sipah-e-Sahaba -- or 'Army of the Friends of the Prophet' -- in their relentless attacks against Pakistani Shia Muslims at their mosques and gatherings
His death was described by the chief of police of the city of Khairpur -- where Haidari was killed in a hail of bullets on August 15 -- as the result of "a family enmity and dispute".
Nevertheless, upon his death, members of SSP -- which is proscribed in Pakistan and the USA as a terrorist organization -- attacked Shia homes and cars, setting many of them aflame and murdering at least 8 prominent Shia community leaders, the AhulBayt News Agency reported on August 20.
The Shia Muslim districts of the Karachi metropolis were reported to be tense among rumors of more widespread attacks against Shias being planned.
Shia Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities are frequently attacked in Pakistan by violent sectarian Sunni groups.
Investigators believe that the same Sunni extremists who were behind the kidnapping of the Iranian commercial attaché in Pakistan, Heshmatollah Atharzadeh, in November 2008. He has not yet been released.
Such extremist groups are believed to receive funding from Saudi Arabia and UAE-based Wahhabi donors.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
It scares me when I find myself nodding in agreement while reading an Iran Press TV piece.
[Iran Press TV Latest] India has handed Pakistan a new dossier of evidence to prosecute Hafiz Saeed, the suspected mastermind of last year's bloody attacks in Mumbai.
According to Indian television channels and the Press Trust of India (PTI), the new dossier on Saeed's involvement was handed to Pakistan's Ambassador Shahid Malik by Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao after a meeting in New Delhi.
The new dossier contains 'additional information... including input on some of the key suspects and accused involved' in the three-day carnage that killed 166 people in Mumbai November last year, PTI said.
The Pakistani Embassy confirmed the meeting had taken place but declined to make further comments.
The new information comes two weeks after Pakistan said evidence supplied by India against Saeed was too weak to prosecute him.
New Delhi, which has so far provided four dossiers to Islamabad about the deadly attacks, insists Pakistan has enough evidence to successfully prosecute Saeed, the founder of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which is blamed for the attacks on India's financial capital.
Nine of the 10 gunmen were among those killed in the assault. The lone surviving gunman, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, a Pakistani national, faces 86 charges, including waging war on India, murder and possessing explosives.
Pakistan has so far arrested five people suspected of involvement in the attack. Their trial is expected to begin next week.
In the immediate aftermath of the killings, Pakistan denied any responsibility, but later admitted the attacks had been partly planned on its soil.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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At least eight militants have been killed in clashes with security forces in the FR Janikhel area of Bannu District, DawnNews reported. Three security personnel were also injured as mortars fired by militants hit the FC Fort in the same area. Official sources say the security forces were conducting a routine search and clean-up operation in Jannikhel when they engaged the militants. Sources say at least eight militants have been killed in the ensuing clashes, as the security forces continue their operation in the region. Earlier, sources said that militants had fired five mortar shells on the FC fort in Janikhel, which injured three security force personnel.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: TTP
Good shooting! (Is shooting the right word if a Predator is involved?
[Asharq al-Aswat] A U.S. drone fired a missile Friday into a suspected militant hide-out in Pakistan's lawless northwest, killing 12 people in an attempt to take out a jihadist commander accused of attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan, intelligence officials said. There was no immediate word Friday whether Siraj Haqqani, an Afghan Taliban commander who operates on both sides of the border, was among the dead. Three women were killed, officials said.
The United States is suspected of having launched more than 40 missile strikes from unmanned planes on Al Qaeda and Taliban targets close to the Afghan border since last year, reportedly killing several top commanders, but also civilians. Earlier this month, one such strike is believed to have killed the Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud.
The missile hit a housing compound in Dande Darpa Khel, a village less than a mile (about one kilometer) west of Miran Shah in North Waziristan, four intelligence officers said condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The U.S. launched the strike based on information that Haqqani was in the compound, according to two of the local intelligence officials based in Miran Shah. However, Pakistani authorities had not been able to confirm he was there, they said. The two officials said Haqqani had visited the targeted house in the past.
Twelve people were killed, including three women, they said. None of the dead has been identified, but local informants told the officers that all those in the house were Afghans.
Dande Darpa Khel and surrounding areas are strongholds of Haqqani, whose network is powerful in eastern Afghanistan. He has a large Islamic school in the village that was hit by a suspected U.S. missile in October 2008, killing about 20 people.
Siraj is the son of senior Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran of the fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s whom American commanders now count as a dangerous foe. Both father and son are alleged to have close connections to Al Qaeda and to have helped funnel foreign fighters into Afghanistan.
The Haqqanis have been linked to attacks in Afghanistan, including an attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai and a suicide attack on a hotel in Kabul, both last year. Haqqani network operatives also plague U.S. forces in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province with ambushes and roadside bombs.
Pakistan's border region is remote, mountainous and there is little government or military control there. Al Qaeda's top leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding in the area and militants move freely across the border.
The U.S. occasionally fired missiles into the region beginning in 2006, but dramatically stepped up the attacks last year.
The strikes have targeted militants behind surging attacks in Pakistan, those blamed for violence in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists allegedly using the area to plot or train for terrorist attacks around the world.
The missiles are fired from CIA-operated drones believed to be launched from across the border in Afghanistan or from secret bases inside Pakistan. They are reported to be piloted by operatives inside the United States. U.S. officials rarely, if ever, acknowledge the airstrikes.
The Pakistani government publicly protests the attacks, which are unpopular among many in the Muslim country of 170 million people, many of whom see the United States and its allies as conducting an unjust war against fellow Muslims in Afghanistan.
Despite this, it is assumed to be cooperating with the strikes and providing intelligence for them. The government says Washington should give the technology to Islamabad because its military is capable of using the drones.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
#1
more please... faster....
Posted by: abu do you love ||
08/22/2009 0:25 Comments ||
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Ma'an -- Israeli forces broke up a peace march and arrested an international solidarity activist in the Hebron-area settlement of Karmi Zur on Friday.
Soldiers used what was described by participants as excessive force and attacked residents and internationals marching in protest of Israel's refusal to allow local farmers to cultivate their lands, much of which abuts the settlement.
The international, an American of Palestinian origin, was detained and later released, with warnings that he was not to enter the West Bank for two weeks. He was not charged. The warning comes at the same time as American consular officials expressed concern over the recent use of stamps prohibiting Palestinian and Arab Americans from entering any area other than the West Bank.
Spokesperson of the Palestinian Solidarity Project and protest organizer Muhammad Awad said soldiers attacked residents and internationals as they walked toward the lands farmers intended to harvest.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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Ma'an -- A Hamas statement said Plestinian Authority security forces arrested four of its affiliates in the West Bank. The four men were from the Tulkarem area.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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Ma'an -- Egyptian security forces on Friday said they had discovered the largest store of goods ever prepped for transfer to Gaza via the Strip's vast network of smuggling tunnels.
Speaking with Ma'an's correspondent in Cairo, Egyptian security sources claimed the storehouse, filled with goods estimated to be worth millions of US dollars, was discovered along the border with Gaza as the result of a tip.
"We received information on a secret storehouse 200 meters from the border with large amounts of goods set to be smuggled to Gaza through tunnels, and in exchange for large amounts of money," said one official familiar with the operation.
He explained that security forces stormed the facility soon after learning its location, and that it was "the first time such a large amount of goods worth millions of dollars was being smuggled to Gaza on the occasion of Ramadan."
Egyptian authorities said the goods included amounts of wood, glass, air conditioners, printers, fax machines, refrigerators, fertilizers, crude plastic, metal containers, tires, carpets, and large quantities of sweets, nuts, and foodstuffs used during Ramadan.
Since Israel and Egypt imposed a devastating blockade on the Strip in 2007, tunnels have become the only reliable means of moving goods into Gaza.
Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities said they discovered a warehouse along the border filled with digging and construction supplies, including generators, electric cables, five large floodlights, and nine rolls of barbed wire. A third storage depot was found containing three motors for both fuel and water pumps, as well as 200 wood boards of varying sizes, the security sources said.
According to the quoted officials, Egyptian efforts had increased around the same time that the country's leader, Hosni Mubarak, departed for Washington last week, as well as the start of Ramadan, which begins on Saturday.
Nevertheless, the same authorities said large amounts of goods were en route to the besieged coastal strip during the Muslim holy month, and that they would enter through Israel's Kerem Shalom and Al-Ouja crossings.
These tunnels, originally built to smuggle weapons into Gaza, have become a life source for Gazans providing them with a variety of commercial goods that are banned by Israel. The tunnel industry provides Gazans with food, clothes, cigarettes, fuel, medicine, and hundreds of other items made scarce by the blockade.
It is believed that over 200 tunnels flow under the Philadelphi Corridor (the Gaza-Egypt border). Built by private contractors, the tunnels often start and end in residents' basements and living rooms, connecting the Egyptian side of the city of Rafah with the Gazan side.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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Ma'an -- A clan clash in Tubas caused the death of a young man and incineration of five houses Thursday night. Palestinian Authority police arrested five in connection with the death of the 23-year-old Husny Ziad Abed Sawafta. An additional 38 were injured. Sawafta was shot point blank with a 9mm. The police said Sawafta's family set fire to the homes to avenge the death of their son, and the fires lead to street-side brawls.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2009 00:00 ||
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A bomb killed three security volunteers in Thailand's south while terrorists militants shot dead three Muslim civilians as the region entered the holy month of Ramadan, police said Saturday.
Terrorists Suspected insurgents detonated the device as a group of officials heading to investigate an earlier blast in troubled Yala province on Saturday tried to move a felled tree blocking a road, they said. Three civilian security volunteers were killed instantly by the explosion and four were wounded, two of them volunteers and two interior ministry officials. The earlier bomb wounded two soldiers.
Also Saturday gunmen riding in a pick-up truck shot a 32-year-old government informant as he went with his family by motorcycle to a rubber plantation in neighbouring Narathiwat province, police said.
A Muslim man who had recently defected from the militants was shot dead in another drive-by attack in Narathiwat on Friday night, police said.
In Pattani province a Muslim deputy village chief was shot dead as he drove his motorcycle home from an evening market late Friday.
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.
