War News for Friday, October 12, 2007

The Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Journal Sentinel is reporting the death of Army Reservist Sergeant 1st Class Anthony Raymond Wasielewski, 50, at his home in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, on Sunday, October 7th. Wasielewski was actually born and raised in Milwaukee, but settled in Ladysmith when he and his wife were married in 1990. As a boy, he played electric guitar with a local band, and also played acoustic guitar ... and loved oil painting and charcoal sketching. Employed by Weather Shield Manufacturing in Ladysmith, he found himself in Afghanistan for a year in 2004-2005 when his reserve unit was activated. When his unit was activated again in September 2006, he could have retired at that point with 20 years of service, but chose to deploy to Iraq because he felt his age and experience would greatly benefit the younger members of his unit. In May of 2007 he was severly injured in a roadside bombing in Ramadi, Al Anbar Province, which necesitated surgery in Germany, and then several months of recuperation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and at the VA hospital in Minnesota. His death at home on Sunday was thought to be cardiac related. He had been discharged from the reserves in September.

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Corps - Iraq soldier from enemy action in an eastern neighborhood of Baghdad on Wednesday, October 10th.

Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: A bomb in a parked car went off near a police patrol in Baghdad's downtown shopping district Friday, killing four people including two policemen, the police said. The blast around noon wounded 15 people, mostly civilians, a police officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not allowed to release the information. Narby shops and cars were damaged in the explosion. The officer, citing eyewitnesses, said the suspected bomber had parked his car by some clothing stores in al-Rasheed Street in the heart of Baghdad and pretended to go shopping. The attacker fled the scene, the officer added.

A car bomb killed four people, including two policemen, and wounded 15 others when it targeted a police patrol in the commercial district of Bab al-Sharji in central Baghdad, police said.

#2: Iraqi security forces found the bodies of five people across Baghdad on Thursday, police said.

#3: Nine people were killed and 24 others wounded when a suicide bomber drove his vehicle rigged with explosives into a coffee shop in the area of New Baghdad on the eve of Eidul-Fitr (Lesser Bairam) festivity for Sunni Muslims in Iraq, police said on Friday. The incident took place at nearly 09:00 p.m. on Thursday at the café usually frequented by young men in the area after the iftar (the fast-breaking meal during the holy fasting month of Ramadan)," a police source, who asked not to have his name mentioned, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq


Tallil:
#1: A vehicle carrying Australian troops in Iraq has been hit by a roadside bomb, but no one was hurt, the Defence Department says. The improvised explosive device detonated this afternoon (AEST) during a patrol in southern Iraq, setting the Bushmaster vehicle on fire.


Tuz Khurmato:
#1: A bomb planted among toys near a children's playground in a predominantly Kurdish town north of Baghdad killed one civilian and wounded 17 others, including five children, earlier in the day, a police officer said. The bomb went off in the town of Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, said police Col. Abbas Mohammed.

Friday's earlier explosive device attack in the district of Touz Khormato, north of Tikrit, rose to two deaths and 20 injuries, mostly children, on the first day of Eidul-Fitr in the central and northern provinces in Iraq, an official security source said on Friday.


Anbar Prv:
Lake Tharthar:
#1: The military said air and ground forces responded to an intelligence report that the insurgent leaders were meeting near Lake Tharthar, in the border region between Anbar and Salahuddin provinces, and killed four suspected militants.

#2: A second air and ground assault was launched against a site south of the lake, where it was believed militants had fled. The second attack killed six women and nine children, as well as 15 suspected militants, a U.S. military statement said. Three children and one woman were injured, and a suspected militant was detained, the statement said



Afghanistan:
#1: An explosion killed four policemen and wounded four more and 10 civilians in a bazaar in southern Afghanistan, a British military spokesman said. He said the blast happened in a bazaar close to a mosque in the town of Gereshk in the restive province of Helmand.

#2: Meanwhile, an Afghan girl was killed and two children were injured Friday when a Taliban rocket missed a government building it had targeted and hit their home in eastern Kunar province, police said. "The Taliban fired four rockets on the city. One of the rockets landed on a home and killed a girl and injured two kids," local police commander Abdul Jalal Jalal, referring to the provincial capital Asad Abad.

Casualty Reports:

The Associated Press is reporting the death of Army Sergeant Jason Lantieri, 25, of Killingworth, Connecticut, in an accident in the vicinity of Baghdad on Wednesday, October 10th. Apparently he "was pinned between vehicles that were being moved" according to his family. Because he was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division, we believe he is the non-hostile death from Multi-National Division - Center described in this CENTCOM release. Lantieri graduated from high school in Killingworth in 2000 ... and then went on to earn a business degree from Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 2004. He had enlisted in the army two years ago and was due home on leave this December. His mother said, "Our family is devastated. He was a pretty special person, full of fun, full of life."

The DoD has confirmed the death of Army Sergeant Jason M. Lantieri, 25, of Killingworth, Connecticut, from injuries he received in a vehicle accident on October 9th. He died on the 10th in Iskandariyah, Babil Province. According to an Associated Press article, he was injured while performing late night vehicle maneuvers when he became pinned between two vehicles

The DoD has identified the Multi-National Corps - Iraq soldier who died in an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Baghdad on Wednesday, October 10th: Staff Sergeant Eric T. Duckworth, 26, of Plano, Texas. He was assigned to the 759th Military Police Battalion out of Fort Carson, CO.