War News for Monday, November 26, 2007

Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: Gunmen in Baghdad killed 11 family members of an Iraqi journalist operating an electronic news website, the journalist Dia al-Kawwaz told AFP by telephone from Amman on Monday. "Four gunmen entered my family house in Shab area. Two of my sisters, their husbands and seven children between five and 10 years old were killed yesterday (Sunday) morning," Kawwaz said. He accused Shiite militiamen of carrying out the killings, saying they "stormed the house when the family was having breakfast".

#2: A roadside bomb wounded two people in the Zaafaraniya district of southern Baghdad, police said.

#3: A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army vehicle in Al Urfaly area, causing damages to the vehicle

#4: Police found four dead bodies throughout Baghdad. 1 in Abu Desheer, 1 in Bayaa, 1 in Ur, 1 in Sleikh


Diyala Prv:
Kanan:
#1: Iraqi police said Al Qaeda gunmen attacked a local anti Al Qaeda group in Kanan (15 Kilometers south Baqouba), killing one member of the group and bombing two houses including the group's headquarter.

Muqdadiyah:
#1: Iraqi police said Al Qaeda fighters attacked a local anti Qaeda group in Al Muqdadiyah (25 kilometers east of Baqouba), the clashes killed four of Al Qaeda fighters.


Kut:
#1: Police found the body of civilian with gunshot wounds on Sunday in central Kut, police said.

#2: Gunmen killed a policeman when they stormed his house in Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.


Hilla:
#1: Gunmen killed a man and wounded another in a drive by-shooting on Sunday in central Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

#2: A civilian was shot down by unknown gunmen in central Hilla on Monday, a source from Babel police said. Unidentified gunmen driving a modern vehicle opened fire on Jabbar Kadhem, who was driving his car in central Hilla's Nadir area, killing him on the spot," a police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq


Basra:
#1: Around midday A gunman killed a woman as she was shopping in Al Banat (girls in Arabic) market according to eye witnesses.


Al Zab:
#1: A suicide truck bomb killed one soldier and wounded five others in an attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint on Sunday in the Al-Zab area, 35 km (20 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said. Another soldier was missing.


Mosul:
#1: Police found a body with gunshot wounds in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan:
#1: A roadside bomb killed four civilians on the outskirts of Kabul Monday, a police official said. The bomb was planted on a dirt track in the Charasayab area of the capital and was apparently detonated by remote control, just as a car carrying four Afghan villagers passed by, all of whom were killed.

#2: Four Afghan soldiers were killed as a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in Afghanistan's eastern Paktia province Monday, spokesman of provincial administration Deen Mohammad Darwish said. "The Taliban rebels detonated a roadside bomb by remote control in Zarmat district today at noon, destroying a military vehicle and killing four soldiers on the spot," Darwish told Xinhua. Two more soldiers were injured in the incident, he added.

#3: Australian soldiers serving in southern Afghanistan are mourning the death of explosive detection dog ‘Andy’ – a two-year-old Kelpie-cross. ‘Andy,’ a member of the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG), was accidentally killed when struck by a vehicle within the Kamp Holland complex at Tarin Kowt.


Casualty Reports:

Retired Army Capt. Dawn Halfaker, one of five women to have lost a limb in combat in Iraq, was back this year to play in her fourth Buddy Bowl with her team, the Hell's Belles. Halfaker, 28, lost her right arm when she was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while on patrol in a Humvee on June 19, 2004.

Master Sgt. Joseph Santiago, 42, was injured in an accident in which he fell from a 25-foot-high berm separating Iraq and Kuwait four and a half years ago. But all he could talk about was the throbbing in his head, his loss of short-term memory, his inability to distinguish numbers from letters and — most of all — his unceasing frustration over being denied combat disability status by military doctors. Sergeant Santiago’s odyssey through the Pentagon bureaucracy is one shared by scores of soldiers who have sustained traumatic brain injuries, whose repercussions can be hard to quantify and even harder to treat. Doctors say more than 2,000 soldiers have suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, though experts say as many as 150,000 troops may be grappling with the effects of head trauma. Last year, a doctor at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Washington disagreed with that assessment, saying Sergeant Santiago’s memory loss, slurred speech and nerve damage were caused by his fall. His injuries are the result of a misstep in the dark. Sergeant Santiago, a chemical and biological weapons expert, was patrolling a berm on the Iraq-Kuwait border when a firefight between American and Iraqi troops broke out in the distance. He was watching through his binoculars when a comrade called out his name. Pivoting in the blackness, he misjudged the edge of the wall and plummeted head first into the sand below.

A soldier from Paignton, injured during a mortar attack on his base in Iraq, has been forced to take an army medical discharge. Grenadier Guard Karl Dobson suffered career-wrecking injuries when he was hit by flying shrapnel in July last year during his second tour of the war zone.Karl, a 25-year-old Lance Corporal, said: "The shrapnel went through the back of my shoulder. I now have only 40 to 50 per cent movement in the joint. "I can't really serve properly in the army with half my shoulder missing."