Security Incidents for Monday, June 18, 07


(1) On June 3rd, CENTCOM issued a press release describing a Task Force Marne death by small arms fire south of Baghdad on June 2nd. Two weeks have now gone by and the DoD has failed to issue a name for this death. We can only conclude at this point that the CENTCOM release was issued in error. As such, this death has been deleted from the database, dropping our death count by one.

(2) MNF-Iraq is reporting the deaths of two Task Force Lightning soldiers from "an explosion" near their vehicle in Baghdad Province on Saturday, June 16th. One other soldier was wounded in the incident.

(3) MNF-Iraq is also reporting the death of a Task Force Lightning soldier from "an explosion" in Kirkuk Province on Saturday, June 16th.

(4) The DoD has announced a new death, not previously reported by CENTCOM. Army Staff Sergeant Michael A. Bechert, 24, of New Castle, Indiana, was severely wounded on May 30th in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad. He died on Thursday, June 14th, at the Brooke Army

(5) MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier when an improvised explosive device detonated near his foot patrol in a southern neighborhood of Baghdad. Unfortunately, the press release does not specify a date of death. We will place the death on Sunday, June 17th, until confirmation of the correct date can be obtained.

(6) The Associated Press is reporting the deaths of three U.S.-led coalition force members in a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar Province on Sunday, June 17th. Their Afghan interpreter also died in the explosion. We are guessing that the dead soldiers were Americans as the bulk of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan are American. But their nationalities have not been confirmed as of yet.

(7) The Dutch Ministry of Defense has announced the death of one of their soldiers in a battle with Taliban insurgents near the town of Chora in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan, on Monday, June 18th: Sergeant-majoor (Sergeant Major) Jos Leunissen, 44. He was assigned to the 13th Infantry Battalion, 11th Airmobile Brigade of the Royal Netherlands Army. The Associated Press provides an English-language account of the death here.





__________________________________________


In Country:
#1: U.S. and Iraqi forces began major military operations Monday along Baghdad‘s southern and northern belts, military officials said. An official in the office of Iraq ‘s national security adviser confirmed the operations, which also were launched in the Tharthar area near Fallujah and in Diyala province. The U.S. military confirmed operations were under way but did not give more details. He declined to be more specific, saying only that the operations were taking place across Baghdad and across Iraq.


Baghdad:
#1: In Baghdad, two parked car bombs exploded near a gas station in southern Baghdad, killing at least seven people who had been lining up to buy fuel, police said. Up to 25 others were injured, and four cars were

The two car bombs that rattled southern Baghdad earlier on Monday left nine persons dead and 25 wounded, a police source said. "Eight vehicles were burned in the two blasts," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq incinerated by the blasts, they said.

#2: Nearby, gunmen ambushed an Interior Ministry convoy, killing an Iraqi colonel and his two guards, police said.

#3: A small fire broke out on Monday in the building where Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has his office. A small fire broke out on Monday in the building where Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has his office but the blaze was under control, a government spokesman said. Maliki was meeting Iraq's provincial governors at the time, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. He said Maliki and the officials were moved to another location. The fire was in the building's kitchen, Dabbagh said, adding no one was hurt.

#4: Gunmen killed eight policemen when they attacked their convoy on Sunday on a road in the town of Mishahda, north of Baghdad, police at a Baghdad hospital where the bodies were brought said. Another police source said four policemen were killed and four wounded.

#5: A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near a foot patrol in the southern part of the city.

#6: A weapons cache belonging to armed groups and containing a number of unknown bodies was found in an elementary school in Baghdad's western neighborhood of al-Saidiya, an Iraqi police source said on Monday.


Diyala Prv:
Baquba:
#1: Muslim Scholars Association has said in an online statement that US forces bombed a Sunni mosque in Baquba, killing five Iraqis. The association which is headed by Harith al-Dhari indicated that a US tank destroyed the Abdullah Ibn Mubarak mosque in Baquba, 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, on Sunday. The attack, according to the statement has left five Iraqis dead, DPA reported.

#2: Gunmen attacked the office of Mohammed Abid, a manager in the Diyala electricity station, and shot him dead in the city of Baquba, police said.

#3: Nine civilians were injured on Monday when a booby-trapped car went off in Baaquba, while three suspected gunmen, believed to be members in al-Qaeda armed group, were killed and nine others were arrested in a security operation in the city, a security source said. "A car bomb detonated on Monday afternoon on a neighborhood in western Baaquba, injuring nine civilians, including four children," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq


Khanaqin:
#1: Five policemen were wounded in an armed attack that targeted the district of Khanaqin, Diala province, an official Iraqi police source said on Monday. "The attack, which took place at the al-Mazhkhar checkpoint, wounded five policemen on duty," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The assailants opened machine-gun fire at the checkpoint and then escaped to an unknown place," the source added.


Najaf:
#1: Some 523 unidentified bodies, received from the freezers of a morgue in Baghdad, were buried in the Wadi al-Salam (Valley of Peace) cemetery in the holy Shiite province of Najaf, 160 km south of Baghdad, during the month of May 2007, an official said on Monday. "The bodies were of young people, women, children and the elderly victims of car bombs, explosive devices and assassinations," Ahmed Deibal, the Najaf province media director, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq


Amarah:
#1: British forces have killed as many as 36 people in a fierce battle with Shia militiamen, Iraqi police and hospital officials have said. The clashes took place in Amarah, which lies 200 miles south-east of Baghdad, during house-to-house searches. More than 100 people were also injured in the fighting. A doctor at the city's general hospital said 36 bodies had been taken to his facility. It is not clear how many were militiamen and how many were civilians. British military spokesman Major David Gell said there had been no British casualties. He said: "We have not yet got the full details, but certainly it was an Iraqi Special Operations Forces operation which had been authorised by the government of Iraq last night and multinational forces were supporting."

More than 100 people were injured in the fighting in Amarah, the officials said. At least three of those killed were Iraqi policemen, they said.

An official in the office of anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the Maysan capital Amara said 17 members of his Mehdi Army had been killed and 45 wounded.


Nasiriyah:
#1: Elsewhere, two people were killed in clashes which erupted between Iraqi police and Mahdi Army fighters in Nasiriyah, about 70 miles south of Amarah, police said.

Elsewhere Monday, eight people were killed in clashes that erupted between Iraqi police and Mahdi Army fighters in Nasiriyah, about 70 miles south of Amarah, police said. More than 60 people were injured, most of them police, they said. The fighting began after some police patrols were attacked there Sunday night, a police officer and an official in the town's health department said, both on condition of anonymity out of security concerns. Some local tribesman had joined the fight, siding with Iraqi police in trying to oust the militiamen from their town, the officials said. A policeman and a militiaman were killed, and more than 60 people were injured, most of them police, they said. The battle included at least eleven mortar strikes on police headquarters in Nasiriyah, the officials said. Clashes continued through Monday morning, and local authorities imposed an indefinite curfew on the city, police said. By early afternoon, the fighting had spilled over into the Souk al-Sheikh area south of Nasiriyah, and into al-Rifaie, north of the city, police said.


Mosul:
#1: The bodies of three brothers were found outside Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, the police said. They had been shot.


Al Anbar Prv:
Fallujah:
#1: Also Monday, four civilians were killed and 13 injured when a parked car bomb ripped through a busy vegetable market in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, police said.

#2: Two people were killed and 10 wounded by a truck bomb in central Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.



Afghanistan:
#1: Seven children were killed in a U.S.-led coalition airstrike targeting suspected al-Qaida militants in eastern Afghanistan, a coalition statement said Monday. In an operation backed by Afghan troops, jets on Sunday targeted a compound that also contained a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school, in the Zarghun Shah district of Paktika province. Early reports indicated seven children at the madrassa and "several militants" were killed, and two militants detained, the statement said.

The coalition says several militants were killed in an airstrike on a compound in Paktika province where the children died. Later, the coalition says "several dozen" militants were killed after a prolonged battle involving coalition helicopters and aircraft in Helmand province.

#2: A Norwegian officer was shot and wounded when his patrol unit was attacked in northern Afghanistan early Monday. The attack came shortly after 36 civilians were killed in one of the worst suicide bombings so far in Afghanistan, as Islamic insurgency spreads. Norwegian military officials said the patrol was attacked in the western province of Faryab, about a three-hour drive west of their base in Meymaneh. The patrol had set up camp for the night when a guard noticed a group of men approaching. He yelled at them and the group opened fire. The Norwegian soldiers fired back. It wasn't immediately clear whether any of the attackers were hit by the Norwegians' defense.

#3: And in Kandahar province, "several" enemy fighters were killed in a battle that began after militants attacked a joint coalition and Afghan patrol.

#3: A Dutch solider was killed and three others wounded Monday in heavy fighting with Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, the chief of the Dutch defense forces announced. The 44-year-old sergeant major was the second Dutch soldier killed in action in four days in Afghanistan and the eighth fatality among the 2,000-strong Dutch contingent in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.

.