War News for Saturday, November 24, 2007

The AFP is reporting the death of an Italian military engineer in the town of Paghman near Kabul, Afghanistan, when a suicide bombing on Saturday, November 24th. Three other Italian soldiers and nine Afghans were injured and six Afghani civilians were killed. It was alleged that soldiers opened fire after the attack killing two of the civilians. The Italian Ministry of Defense confirms the death of EI Chief Marshal Daniel Paladini and the three wounded soldiers

The Chinese press Xinhua is reporting the death of a NATO soldier who died after a vehicle-rollover on Saturday, November 24th. as quoted from a ISAF statement released on Saturday. The soldier was injured Friday night in Wardak Province in Southern Afghanistan and evacuated to an ISAF treatment facility in Khost province where he died. The release did not release the nationality of the soldier in accordance with NATO policy however we assume he is American.


Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: a roadside bomb detonated in the morning near a police patrol in the Park al-Sa'doon neighborhood in downtown Baghdad, damaging a police vehicle and wounding two policemen aboard, an Interior Ministry source said.

A roadside bomb wounded two members of the Interior Ministry's anti-crime unit when it targeted their patrol in central Baghdad, police said.

#2: A roadside explosive charge in southern Baghdad's area of al-Jadriyya went off on Saturday afternoon, wounding an Iraqi soldier and two other civilians," the source, who preferred to remain unnamed, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

Around 2 p.m. a roadside bomb targeted civilians in Al Jadiria, causing no casualties. Iraqi army vehicles moved to the site and another bomb targeted army vehicle, injuring one soldier and two civilians.

#3: In Sadr City, a sprawling Shi'ite slum and Mehdi Army stronghold in northeast Baghdad, thousands of Iraqis rallied on Saturday to pledge their support to the young cleric Sadr. Many carried banners reading "No, No America ... Yes, Yes Moqtada."


Hilla:
#1: Unknown armed men opened fire on worshippers while leaving a mosque late on Friday in the city of Hilla, some 100 km south of the capital, killing two of them and injuring three others, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.


Balad:
#1: One mortar bomb killed an Iraqi citizen and wounded two others on Thursday when it landed inside a coalition forces' military base in the city of Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said


Samarra:
#1: A car bomb killed three policemen and wounded 11 others near the city of Samarra, police said.


Tuz Khurmato:
#1: The body of a policeman was found with gunshot wounds in Tuz Khurmato in northern Iraq, two days after he was kidnapped, police said.


Kirkuk:
#1: Authorities imposed a daylong curfew in the northern city of Kirkuk and surrounding areas on Saturday as Iraqi security forces launched a major offensive against militants amid rising violence in the oil-rich area. Acting on intelligence, more than 1,000 Iraqi police and army soldiers poured into the streets of the violence-plagued city, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad.


Mosul:
#1: (update) Two bomb attacks carried out by al Qaeda militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday killed 21 people, the U.S. military said on Saturday. Iraqi police had previously put the death toll at nine.

#2: A policeman was killed and another was wounded when their patrol vehicle overturned at al-Sokkar intersection in northern Mosul on Saturday morning," Brigadier Saeed Ahmed Abdullah told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

#3: Meanwhile, an explosive charge went off near a police patrol in Mosul's western area of al-Zangali, wounding a policeman and a civilian," Abdullah indicated.
#4: In a third incident, a woman was hit by random fire in the same area

#5: a one-year-old child was wounded by unknown fire in Mosul's western neighborhood of al-Thawra, according to Abdullah.



Afghanistan:
#1: A Taliban suicide attacker killed seven people, including three children and an Italian military engineer, when he blew himself up Saturday in a scenic Afghan town near Kabul, officials said. Three more Italians and nine Afghans, five of them children, were wounded in the attack in the town of Paghman, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of Kabul, Italian and Afghan officials told AFP. In a compound opposite the site of the blast, weeping men and women gathered around the bloodied and shrapnel-pierced bodies of a father and his six-year-old son. Some alleged the pair were killed when soldiers opened fire after the attack. "These pigs killed him," said one angry relative. But Uriakhail and Paghman district police chief Abdul Razaq flatly rejected there had been any firing.

#2: A soldier from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died Saturday morning from injuries sustained in a vehicle-rollover Friday night in southern Afghan province of Wardak, said an ISAF statement on Saturday. The soldier was medically evacuated to an ISAF treatment facility in Khost province where he died, the statement said.

#3: Two suicide car bomb attacks killed at least 15 people on Saturday in the Pakistani garrison town of Rawalpindi, the military said. One car rammed a ministry of defence bus taking personnel to work at an intelligence service office, while another bomber blew up his car at a checkpoint outside army headquarters. Two security officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that more than 35 people were killed, but there was no independent verification of the number of casualties.

#4: Gun battle between Taliban insurgents and Afghan police in Afghanistan's central Ghazni province has left a dozen persons including 11 insurgents dead, a local official said Saturday.. "Taliban and police came in contact in Gilan district of Ghazni province Friday afternoon, 11 rebels and one policeman were killed," Mahboubullah, the district chief of Gilan told Xinhua.. Two more policemen and four insurgents sustained injuries in the firefight that lasted for some two hours, he added.