War News for Friday, May 30, 2008

The AFP is reporting the death of a US-led coalition soldier (CJTF-101) from hostile action in near the western town of Farah, Farah province, Afghanistan on Thursday, May 29th. No other details were released.


Reported Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: (Thursday) 2 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad by Iraqi Police today. 1 in Saidiyah and 1 in Palestine Street.

#2: General Manager of a private Iraqi oil company, Hussein Ali Abdulhussein survived an assassination attempt in al-Masbah neighbourhood in Karrada at around 9.30 pm. He is now in the neurosurgery hospital being treated for his wounds.

#3: U.S. forces said they killed two people who they suspected were preparing a bomb attack in the New Baghdad district of the capital.

#4: An Iraqi child was killed and two were wounded when a group of children playing soccer at Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, picked up a bomb and it exploded, police said.


Diyala Prv:
#1: "A mortar attack took place on a house this morning, killing three women and wounding two members of the same family," said a police officer from Jalawla, east of Baquba. "This attack targeted Jalawla police station in the heart of the village, which is close to the victim's house," said the officer, who requested anonymity.

Earlier in the day a joint Iraqi-U.S. force detained 20 persons on alleged involvement in a mortar attack against an Iraqi army base in Diala province.The force raided "Jaghat village near al-Saadiyah district, this morning, and arrested 20 persons suspected of launching a mortar attack Thursday on the Iraqi base located near the village," the source, who requested anonymity, told VOI.

#2-3: In other incidents in the province, two roadside bombs killed a man and a child.

#2: "An explosive charge detonated, this morning, in Buhruz district near Ba'aquba, killing a shepherd," the source, who asked to be unnamed, told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI).

#3: A child was killed and three others wounded when an improvised explosive device went off near a football playground in central Baaquba, thus becoming the third IED attack in the province of Diala on Friday, a security source said.

#4: The same source added that another roadside bomb exploded near a civilian car in Hibhib district, 15 km north of Ba'aquba, killing a civilian.

#5: In other incidents in the province, unidentified gunmen shot dead a member of a US-backed anti-Al-Qaeda group.


Basra:
#1: Gunmen killed on Friday colonel Ali Kadhim Salman , a police officer of Babil, near his house at Al-Deir town (30 miles north of Basra).Police arrested one of his killers an hour later of the incident.


Tarmiya:
#1: U.S. forces said they killed a man approaching them who they suspected of "hostile intent" at Tarmiya, 25 km (15 miles) north of Baghdad.


Tikrit:
#1: Iraqi security forces shot dead at least 11 suspected Al-Qaeda operatives who were hiding in a sheep truck near the northern city of Tikrit on Friday, the defence ministry said. The men were killed in fighting at a checkpoint between ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit and Baiji, ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said. "Members of the Iraqi special forces intercepted a truck transporting animals, but there were 11 Al-Qaeda fighters hiding in it," Askari told AFP, adding that one of the men was a foreigner from an unidentified Arab nation.

#2: In a separate incident in Tikrit, the US military said its troops shot dead a suspected Al-Qaeda weapons dealer and detained another man.


Mosul:
#1: Gunmen killed three people in different incidents in Mosul on Thursday, police said



Afghanistan:
#1: Taliban insurgents seized a remote Afghan town overnight, patrolling the streets for some hours before withdrawing ahead of a government operation to retake it on Friday, residents and officials said. Ghazni province where the attack took place is only a two-hour drive south from the capital, Kabul, and while not as unstable as provinces such as Kandahar or Helmand, the villages around the historic city of Ghazni have seen an upsurge of Taliban activity in the past two years. Ghulam Shah, district governor of the captured district of Rashidan, had links with the Taliban and had handed over the district buildings to the militants, provincial Police Chief Khan Mohammad Mujahid told Reuters. The district police chief, meanwhile, had been taken prisoner, he said.

#2: A suicide bomber attacked US-led forces in Khost province, official said on Friday. The attacker died but no other casualties were reported in the attempt on a foreign military convoy in Sabari district, said Khaiber Pakhtoon, governor's spokesman in the south-eastern province. The bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives near a military patrol in the east of the capital, damaging shops and homes, local police chief Alishah Paktiawal said.

#3: Meanwhile, a US coalition soldier and several militants were killed while 20 insurgents were captured, officials said Friday. A statement from Bagram airbase near Kabul said the soldier was killed in combat in south-western Farah province on Thursday. The US military also claimed it killed several militants and captured 16 others Thursday in Ghazni province.

#4: Taliban in Afghanistan on Thursday claimed to have shot down a chopper of a United States private security company, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), in the restive province of Khost. "I am taking the responsibility of shooting down this copter in which all people on board have been killed," remarked Taliban`s senior commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, who called this correspondent from an undisclosed location by telephone. Haqqani, whose fighters operate in Afghanistan`s Khost, Paktia and even in the capital Kabul, claimed that 15 to 20 US soldiers were on board when his men targeted the chopper at Zambar area near Sabaro town in Khost.

#5: two US fighters on Thursday violated Pakistan`s airspace in the North Waziristan tribal agency. Official as well as tribal sources told media that two US fighters entered North Waziristan`s Saidgai and Ghulam Khan at 9:25 am and flew over the border town till 9:35 am."Both the planes flew over about 400 meters deep inside the Pakistani airspace but targeted some suspected places inside Afghanistan," said a military official from the border area, on condition that he would not be named.