#4
Great work GB! A natural beauty. Sadly, in today's work Ms. Grable would surely have a fake boob job. Ladies, I'd like to go on record: there are still men who appreciate the real thing. And her legs are nice too!
On 29 October 2001, while the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime's ambassador in Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat's right sat his interpreter, Ahmad Rateb Popal, a man with an imposing presence. Like the ambassador, Popal wore a black turban, and he had a huge bushy beard. He had a black patch over his right eye socket, a prosthetic left arm and a deformed right hand, the result of injuries from an explosives mishap during an old operation against the Soviets in Kabul.
But Popal was more than just a former mujahideen. In 1988, a year before the Soviets fled Afghanistan, Popal had been charged in the United States with conspiring to import more than a kilo of heroin. Court records show he was released from prison in 1998.
Flash forward to 2009, and Afghanistan is ruled by Popal's cousin, President Hamid Karzai. Popal has cut his huge beard down to a neatly trimmed one and has become an immensely wealthy businessman, along with his brother Rashid Popal, who pleaded guilty to a heroin charge in 1996 in Brooklyn in a separate case.
The Popal brothers control the huge Watan Group in Afghanistan, a consortium engaged in telecommunications, logistics and, most important, security. Watan Risk Management, the Popals' private military arm, is one of the few dozen private security companies in Afghanistan [its senior personnel are ex-British army, many of them from Special Services]. One of Watan's enterprises, key to the war effort, is protecting convoys of Afghan trucks heading from Kabul to Kandahar, carrying American supplies.
Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex--military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahideen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.
In this grotesque carnival, the US military's contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. "It's a big part of their income," one of the top Afghan government security officials admits. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10% of the Pentagon's logistics contracts -- hundreds of millions of dollars -- consists of payments to insurgents.
Understanding how this situation came to pass requires untangling two threads. The first is the complex web of connections that determines who wins and who loses in Afghan business, and a good place to pick up this thread is a small firm awarded a US military logistics contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars: NCL Holdings.
Like the Popals' Watan Risk, NCL is a licensed security company in Afghanistan. What NCL Holdings is most notable for in Kabul contracting circles, though, is the identity of its chief principal, Hamed Wardak. He is the young American son of Afghan's current defence minister, General Rahim Wardak, who was a leader of the mujahideen against the Soviets.
Earlier this year, the firm, with no apparent trucking experience, was named as one of the six companies that would handle all the US trucking in Afghanistan, bringing supplies to the web of bases and remote outposts scattered across the country.
Striking contracting gold
At first the contract, for "host nation trucking", was large but not gargantuan. But over the summer, citing the coming "surge" and a new doctrine, "Money as a weapons system", the US military expanded the contract 600% for NCL and the five other companies. The contract documentation warns of dire consequences if more is not spent: "Service members will not get the food, water, equipment and ammunition they require."
Each of the military's six trucking contracts was bumped up to $360m, or a total of nearly $2.2bn. Put it in this perspective: this single two-year effort to hire Afghan trucks and truckers was worth 10% of the annual Afghan gross domestic product. NCL, the firm run by the defence minister's well-connected son, had struck pure contracting gold.
Host nation trucking does, indeed, keep the US military efforts alive in Afghanistan. "We supply everything the army needs to survive here," one American trucking executive told me. "We bring them their toilet paper, their water, their fuel, their guns, their vehicles."
The epicentre is Bagram air base, just an hour north of Kabul, from where virtually everything in Afghanistan is trucked to the outer reaches of what the army calls "the battlespace" -- that is, the entire country. Parked near Entry Control Point 3, the trucks line up, shifting gears and sending up clouds of dust as they prepare for their various missions across the country.
The real secret to trucking in Afghanistan is security on the perilous roads, controlled by warlords, tribal militias, insurgents and Taliban commanders. The American executive I talked to was fairly specific about it: "The army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money."
That is something everyone seems to agree on. Mike Hanna is the project manager for a trucking company called Afghan American Army Services. The company, which still operates in Afghanistan, had been trucking for the United States for years but lost out in the host nation trucking contract that NCL won. Hanna explained the security realities quite simply: "You are paying the people in the local areas -- some are warlords, some are politicians in the police force -- to move your trucks through."
Hanna explained that the prices charged are different depending on the route. "We're basically being extorted. Where you don't pay, you're going to get attacked. We just have our field guys go down there, and they pay off who they need to."
Sometimes, he says, the fee is high, and sometimes it is low. "Moving 10 trucks, it is probably $800 per truck to move through an area. It's based on a number of trucks and what you're carrying. If you have fuel trucks, they are going to charge you more. If you have dry trucks, they're not going to charge you as much. If you are carrying Mraps [mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles] or Humvees, they are going to charge you more."
#1
Afghanistan. What a worthless country. What a worthless people. Invent Agent Orange 2.0 to spray on poppy fields, then pull out. Watch the a-holes with UAVs 24/7.
That will more than enough prootect American interests.
#9
Well Fellers, I'm on my way back over there for another tour (my third) this spring, and I believe we can get that country shaped up pretty good if the current administration lets us. Things aren't all that bad, the ANA and ANSF are starting to get a pretty good grip at kicking doors, pulling triggers, etc. Where we are making the greatest gains is through out PSYOPS and reconstruction/Engineer crews. Afghanistan has a lot to offer the world as a valid Nation-State, all they need to do is get their ducks in a tighter row. Someday you might go to AFG on vacation just as you do Jordan or Egypt now. It really is a fascinating culture and country.
#11
Thanks lotp, Wilco. Fred, I still owe you that piece of Marble from Saddams' bedroom. When I get back over there R-Burgers, I'll of course report in from time to time as I am able.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/14/2009 20:04 Comments ||
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#13
I appreciate the brevity of Penguin's plan. A letter outlining the plan sent to our elected officials would be interesting.
"When you're up to your backside in crocodiles, it's difficult to remember that the object of the exercise is to drain the swamp."
GirlThursday, I suppose it often doesn't hurt to go back to the beginning and see what the objectives were.
#15
Look, all I know about afghanistan is what I read on the Internet. It all depends on the afghans themselves pulling their head out their collective asses. They have had seven years to think about it.
A huge car bomb has targeted foreign soldiers outside a US-run NATO military base in the Afghan capital, shaking Kabul and injuring several troops and Afghan civilians.
The blast took place in the early hours of Friday near Camp Phoenix, the US base on the Kabul-Jalalabad road. Initial reports said a bomber in a white car struck a coalition forces vehicle on its way to the base, where Afghan forces are trained.
Sources said suspected Taliban militants exchanged heavy fire with the NATO troops and fought a pitched battle following the blast. "Three foreign soldiers have been injured, they are possibly American," a criminal investigation chief for the Kabul police said. The official added three civilians were also wounded in the latest attack.
Six injured and a car blown up? That doesn't sound terribly effective. Perhaps I'm missing something.
The incident was the latest in a series of bomb attacks on US instillations in Kabul, where militancy has skyrocketed over the past few months.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
No mention of this on other news services. So I'll assume it didn't happen. A pitched gun battle in Kabul triggered my scepticism.
Some 240 villages in Saudi Arabia have been evacuated and scores of schools closed due to fighting which has now spilled over from Yemen, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday, citing local contacts.
Saudi Arabia launched an offensive last week after Yemeni rebels seized Saudi territory along the mountainous border from which they said the Saudis had been allowing Yemeni troops to use to attack their positions. "Fighting has now spilled into Saudi Arabia, reportedly causing 240 villages to be evacuated and more than 50 schools to be closed," Sigrid Kaag, UNICEF's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.
A Saudi government adviser said on Thursday that Saudi Arabia is using air power and artillery to enforce a 10 km deep buffer zone inside Yemen to keep the Houthi rebels away from its southwestern border. Fighting between Yemeni troops and Houthi rebels, who say Yemen's Shia minority suffers discrimination and neglect, has flared on and off since 2004 in the northern province of Saada.
Malnutrition: UNICEF voiced deep concern at the escalation of the conflict in north Yemen, where the United Nations now says 175,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. More than 15,000 are staying in al-Mazraq camp in Hajjah province, the population of which has doubled in the past month, according to the UN children's agency. "Deaths have been recorded among children in the camp as malnutrition, already a chronic problem in Yemen, is reaching alarming levels," Kaag said. More than 600 children in the camp are being treated for severe acute malnutrition, she said.
The UN refugee agency said that up to 900 people have been arriving every day at al-Mazraq which has exceeded its capacity. UNHCR estimated its current population at 10,000. "The latest sudden influx is adding more pressure on an already dire situation, and the overcrowding in the camp is becoming a major concern," UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said.
"Three or four families now share a tent normally meant for one." The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) voiced concern at the worsening plight of civilians as the conflict intensifies. The humanitarian agency called on all sides in the conflict to spare civilians and allow the safe, unimpeded passage of aid. "All persons detained in connection with the conflict must be treated humanely. And we stand ready to visit any such persons," ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said. Due to the steady flow of refugees, the ICRC and Yemeni Red Crescent set up a camp at Mandaba in Baqim, close to the Saudi border in northwestern Yemen, where it is providing food rations and clean water to some 6,000 people, she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Bangladeshi police said Friday they have arrested three Pakistani men who were suspected of plotting to attack US and Indian targets in the capital Dhaka.
Police spokesman Shyamol Kumar Mukharjee told AFP the men were believed to be members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group blamed for last year's attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.
'The latest arrests in Dhaka follow those last week of three other (Bangladeshi) men in the southeastern city of Chittagong who were planning to attack US targets,' he said.
A senior police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities believed the men arrested in Dhaka were planning attacks on US and Indian interests in the Bangladeshi capital.
Police said they made the Chittagong arrests based on information from two men detained last month in Chicago.
US authorities have charged those suspects, David Coleman Headley and Pakistan-born Tahawwur Hussain Rana, with plotting attacks, including on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005.
Headley, 49, a US citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, was arrested by the FBI on October 3 at Chicago's O'Hare airport before boarding a flight to Philadelphia en route to Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Government forces killed more than 20 militants in Chechnya on Friday, and a bomb blast at a cemetery in a neighbouring province killed three relatives visiting the grave of a police officer slain by insurgents, law enforcement authorities said.
Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president said it was possible Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov was among those killed in the fighting in the province's southern mountains. President Ramzan Kadyrov said one of the dead was identified as a comrade who had often been at Umarov's side, according to his office, but he cited no other evidence and said forensics experts would seek to identify other victims.
Chechen Interior Minister Magomed Deniyev said there were no casualties among government forces in the fighting. The reported toll was unusually high, but it comes amid an upsurge of violence in mostly Muslim Chechnya nearly a decade after Russian forces drove an independence-minded regional government from power in the second of two devastating separatist wars.
Neighbouring provinces in Russia's volatile North Caucasus are also plagued by violence, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev singled out the region as a source of serious concern in his state of the nation speech on Tuesday. In Dagestan, east of Chechnya, a bomb blast at a village cemetery killed three civilians - the widow, sister and daughter of a police officer who was among the victims of nearly daily attacks on law enforcement authorities in the province, regional Interior Ministry spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said. Authorities believe the attack was the work of Islamic militants.
In Ingushetia, west of Chechnya, three suspected militants who opened fire at a police checkpoint on Friday were shot and killed, officials said. Madina Khadziyeva, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry's branch in the province of Ingushetia, said police stopped the suspects' car and asked for identification, and the men were killed by police after responding with gunfire. Police in the North Caucasus frequently report such scenarios, and the account could not be independently verified.
Blasts: Also, a series of blasts ripped through an arms depot near the Russian city of Ulyanovsk, killing two firemen, but dozens of people escaped the explosions and fire by hiding in a shelter.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Eight oil tankers carrying fuel for Nato troops in Afghanistan were gutted by fire and a driver was killed in two attacks in Balochistan on Friday.
Police said some two dozen men opened fire on some tankers parked near a hotel in the Machh area of Bolan district in the morning. Five of the tankers caught fire and a driver, identified as Juma Khan, was killed.
DPO Junaid Arshad told Dawn over telephone that five tankers were completely gutted in the attack. The assailants escaped after the attack.
Two men injured in the attack were taken to the Machh civil hospital.
In the other attack, some men opened fire on three tankers going to Kandahar from Karachi near the Ornach crossing, forcing the drivers to stop their vehicles. The assailants then put the tankers on fire.
No casualty was reported in the incident. No one has claimed responsibility for the two attacks.
Police officials suspect involvement of religious elements in the attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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At least 2 soldiers and six Taliban were killed in Operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan, an ISPR press release said on Friday.
The soldiers embraced shahadat during an exchange of fire with terrorists at Ahmed Wam. Two soldiers were also injured in the incident. A clearance operation at Khawasai is under way.
Security forces have fully secured the area from Makeen to Marobi Raghzai in South Waziristan. They also cleared Rogha and Mir Khoni.
Separately, security forces apprehended a terrorist, Qamar Ali in Shangla. They conducted search operations in Shalpin, Amankot, Ghalagai and apprehended three more terrorists.
They also completed Operation Elam Mountain successfully. A security official was also killed and three others were injured during the operation that continued for 48 hours. Taliban commanders Asmatullah, Habibur Rehman, Habib's wife and a son were also killed in the operation.
Meanwhile, security forces also arrested Taliban commander Tahir alias Hazrat Ali, a resident of Khwazakhela, from Jamia Masjid Swari. Separately, police arrested an alleged suicide bomber, Wahidullah, 15, from Aqba in Saidu Sharif. The police also seized explosives and material used in a bomb from him.
The body of Taliban commander, Ali Rehman alias Fauji, was recovered from tehsil Kabal. He was wanted in various heinous crimes.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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At least eight people -- including seven security officials -- were killed and 22 injured in a suicide attack at a police station in Bannu on Friday. The bomber struck 25 minutes after the suicide attack on the ISI building in Peshawar. A police official told Daily Times that a suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the Bakkakhel Police Station on Miranshah Road -- killing seven security personnel, two FC troops and a pedestrian. The police official said 22 people, including 19 policemen, were also injured in the suicide attack. The station is close to the border with North Waziristan, an area in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region where officials believe many Taliban have fled to escape the recent army offensive. The bombings took place as US National Security Adviser Gen James Jones visited the country for talks with top political and security officials, including military chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani. The government has vowed the surging attacks would not dent the country's resolve to pursue the operation in South Waziristan.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Indian Maoists kidnapped a state legislator and were suspected of triggering a landmine blast that killed three troopers in separate incidents, police in eastern India said Friday.
Ram Chandra Singh, a legislator in Jharkhand state from the regional opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal party, and an aide were snatched late Thursday in a district that is as a hotbed of the insurgency.
'Police have launched a search operation to recover Singh who was kidnapped by Maoists,' Jharkhand police chief V.D. Ram told AFP by phone.
The kidnapping comes ahead of polls in Jharkhand later this month to elect a provincial government.
Meanwhile, three paramilitary troopers including two officers, were killed Friday when their van drove over a landmine planted on a road in the neighbouring eastern state of Orissa, local police superintendent Satyabrata Bhoi said.
The attack took place 610 kilometres south of state capital Bhubaneswar.
The dead include the driver of the vehicle, a deputy commandant and a sub-inspector -- all belonging to the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
'The van was followed by more vehicles carrying security personnel to crucial destinations. The blast was unfortunate and could be due to a lack of proper intelligence,' Bhoi told AFP by phone.
The convoy was transporting troops ahead of the start of a concerted assault on the Maoist militants' jungle bases in the so-called 'red corridor' that stretches across more than half a dozen states in eastern India including Orissa, a police source said.
The security operation, planned by the federal government, is tipped to start this month.
The Maoist movement started as a peasant uprising in 1967 but has now spread to 20 of India's 29 states.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has labelled the militants the greatest threat to India's internal security, and last month rebuked regional police chiefs for failing to stem their attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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[Ma'an] Egyptian security forces shut down a smuggling tunnel between Egypt and Gaza in the Rafah area of the Strip on Friday, sources said.
Egyptian sources said the tunnel, which surfaces in Gaza at the Salah Ad-Din area, was shut down. They noted that no goods or smugglers were found inside.
The smugglers were likely the group of men that threw rocks at the the security convoy as it entered the Egyptian As-Sarsour border area in Egyptian Rafah to investigate a warehouse of allegedly smuggled goods.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Israeli forces have opened fire on Palestinian protesters in the West Bank village of Naalin, leaving two of them wounded.
Palestinians demonstrating against the Israeli separation wall, said Israeli forces resorted to force and used rifle fire against them during the rally on Friday, Yent reported.
The Israeli military also confirmed the use of Ruger rifles which has been deemed by military prosecutors as live fire.
Earlier this year, the rights group B'tselem appealed to the military prosecutor with a demand to ban the rifles.
Judge Advocate General Avi Mandelblit said in his response to the appeal that "the guidelines for use of this ammunition (Ruger rifles) are severe and parallel to those for the use of live ammunition."
Israeli forces had shot and killed a Palestinian and wounded four others during weekly demonstrations in June, reportedly using the rifles.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Good question, I wondered the same thing. How is a Ruger different from a Winchester, a Galil, or any other make of rifle? Ruger makes plenty of pistols too. And as far as I know, they all qualify as "live fire" weapons.
#5
Ruger makes high end .177 and .22 cal BB/pellet air rifles. It will leave a good size welt over clothes and depending on ammo type and a head shot, can cause serious damage.
Posted by: ed ||
11/14/2009 12:10 Comments ||
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#6
My Grandmother had a Benjamin .22 pellet rifle, Mainly for Squirrels eating her Pecans, didn't use a disposable CO2 Cylinder, you pumped it up with an under-barrel built in pump, ten pumps and it was almost as powerful as a 22 short, punched clear through tin cans (NOTE) real steel, not aluminum, and would punch through steel barn siding (Once, got a spanking)
Not a toy.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/14/2009 12:32 Comments ||
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#7
A boy's not worth his salt if he doesn't do something to get himself spanked once in a while.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/14/2009 13:09 Comments ||
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#8
My younger son pumps his bb gun up 50 times and shoots squirrels in the head. The damage is like a 22 short. the squirrels don't hang around much on our property any more.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/14/2009 15:57 Comments ||
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#9
Hey Jim, I think my dad had that same model of Benjamin air rifle. That thing could be deadly! I was always afraid to give it more than 5 pumps. I kept rabbits out of our garden with it. Very effective.
#10
I believe the Chinese make a copy of the Benjamin air rifle and use it in marksmanship training (or used to in the 80's). The ballistics compare favorably to a 22 short. my brother in law has one and it sure takes care of the squirrels that try to rob his bird feeders.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
11/14/2009 18:15 Comments ||
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Suspected Islamic insurgents have shot dead three civilians and six people have been injured in bomb and shooting attacks in Thailand's troubled south.
Police said a 49-year-old deputy village headman and a 52-year-old man were shot dead in an ambush early on Saturday morning as they went to guard a wood processing plant in Narathiwat province. An 18-year-old Muslim man was killed a day earlier in a drive-by shooting in neighbouring Yala.
Four soldiers patrolling in a car were injured in a joint bomb and shooting attack in Narathiwat province on Friday, while a 24-year-old man was wounded in a gun attack outside his house in the same area that evening.
In Yala province, a roadside bomb attack left a 21-year-old woman wounded.
[Dawn] Twenty-three people died in the southern Philippines during fierce clashes between communist guerrillas and the military after the militants raided a logging site, officials said Friday.
The guerrillas killed 12 people, including eight soldiers, as they attacked the site on Wednesday in a remote forest on the volatile island of Mindanao, regional deputy police chief Nestor Fajura said.
A military spokesman said 11 communist militants were killed in a counter-attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Headley interacted with his bosses in Pakistan through the ID mov.monie@yahoo.com
How they made e-mail IDs
Rana used to guide Headley on creating e-mail Ids. In an e-mail to Headley, Rana once wrote, One of my brothers is Brigadier Movadat Hussain Rana and the other is Sibte Hasan Rana Monie. They are in Rawalpindi.
I really admire e-mails making it instant half mulaqat specially Yahoo as it seems superior to Hotmail. Subsequently Headley started using email with the ID mov.monie@yahoo.com, drawn from first names of Ranas brothers.
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.
On 29 October 2001, while the Taliban's rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime's ambassador in Islamabad in neighbouring Pakistan gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat's right sat his interpreter, 
A huge car bomb has targeted foreign soldiers outside a US-run NATO military base in the Afghan capital, shaking Kabul and injuring several troops and Afghan civilians. 
Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president said it was possible Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov was among those killed in the fighting in the province's southern mountains. President Ramzan Kadyrov said one of the dead was identified as a comrade who had often been at Umarov's side, according to his office, but he cited no other evidence and said forensics experts would seek to identify other victims.
At least 2 soldiers and six Taliban were killed in Operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan, an ISPR press release said on Friday.
At least eight people -- including seven security officials -- were killed and 22 injured in a suicide attack at a police station in Bannu on Friday. The bomber struck 25 minutes after the suicide attack on the ISI building in Peshawar. A police official told Daily Times that a suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the Bakkakhel Police Station on Miranshah Road -- killing seven security personnel, two FC troops and a pedestrian. The police official said 22 people, including 19 policemen, were also injured in the suicide attack. The station is close to the border with North Waziristan, an area in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal region where officials believe many Taliban have fled to escape the recent army offensive. The bombings took place as US National Security Adviser Gen James Jones visited the country for talks with top political and security officials, including military chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani. The government has vowed the surging attacks would not dent the country's resolve to pursue the operation in South Waziristan.
[Dawn] Indian Maoists kidnapped a state legislator and were suspected of triggering a landmine blast that killed three troopers in separate incidents, police in eastern India said Friday.
[Dawn] Twenty-three people died in the southern Philippines during fierce clashes between communist guerrillas and the military after the militants raided a logging site, officials said Friday.
