War News for Friday, June 06, 2008

Baghdad:
#1: The U.S. military issued three additional statements Friday saying its soldiers killed four suspects and captured more than 57 others in raids earlier in the week in Baghdad and across northern Iraq.

#2: A U.S. airstrike killed four militants on Thursday just after they loaded their truck with weapons in Baghdad's Sadr City district, the U.S. military said.

#3: Coalition forces captured 10 wanted men and detained 22 others in operations targeting al Qaeda bombing networks in Baghdad, Mosul and the Tigris River valley on Thursday and Friday, said the U.S. military.


Diyala Prv:
Baquba:
#1: Joint security forces killed three members of al-Qaeda network and captured six others in two separate operations in the city of Baaquba, an official security source in Diala province said on Friday.


Dour:
#1: Unknown gunmen killed three policemen and wounded two others at a police checkpoint in Dour, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Tikrit:
#1: Gunmen kidnapped an off-duty police officer on a road near Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Sulaimaniya Prv:
#1: Border villages in the area of Bashdar, Sulaimaniya province, came under heavy Iranian artillery shelling on Friday morning but no information on casualties is available yet, the spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdistan region's guard forces said. "The villages of Kokaz and Khandoura, both lie at the foot of Mountain Bashdar, (160 km) northeastern Sulaimaniya, came under heavy Iranian artillery shelling, which is still going on," Jabbar Yawir told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq


Mosul:
#1: Security forces found an unidentified charred body in western Mosul city, according to a security source in Ninewa police on Friday. "The police found on Friday an unidentified charred body in the western Mosul area of al-Bursa," the source, who did not wish to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.


Al Anbar Prv:
Ramadi:
#1: Also Friday, a suicide bomber that Iraqi police said they believed was a woman exploded herself near a checkpoint in a village outside Ramadi, wounding two policemen. Police said they were searching for another woman who fled the scene and may have been a second bomber.



Afghanistan:
#1: The senior adviser to the tribal leader in one of the few relatively peaceful districts of Kandahar province was gunned down Friday, the latest in a wave of killings and attempted assassinations of major Afghan government supporters. Malim Akbar Khakrezwal, 55, a former mujahedeen leader and a key supporter of the leader of the Alokozai tribe in the Arghandab district, was shot and killed outside his home in the village of Lowwal, just outside Kandahar city.

#2: Three members of a family were killed by a roadside bomb in southeastern Paktika province. Ghamay Khan Muhammadyar, spokesman for the governor of south-eastern Paktika province said, the blast occurred in the Mamozai area remote Wazikhwa district Thursday evening. A couple and their son were killed when their car hit a landmine, said Muhammadyar, adding, 'They were going to a health clinic for treatment.'


Casualty Reports:

Staff Sgt. Earl Granville, 24, a Carbondale native, was seriously injured Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. His father, Al Granville, said the family didn’t have all the facts about his condition, but he’s in “good spirits” and within the week should be transferred to Walter Reed hospital in Washington, D.C.

Guardsman Graeme Boyd a Scottish soldier said yesterday he went to Iraq expecting to face dangerous insurgents - only to be felled by an exotic spider as he slept. Guardsman Graeme Boyd's left arm swelled to around five times its normal size and he endured seven operations after being bitten by the huge camel spider. "My arm was just dead, I felt as I had been sleeping on it funny," he said. "It was a few days later that I started to be in pain." When a doctor saw the size of his arm and noticed a hole the size of a pea under his shoulder, he was ordered straight into hospital. The soldier, of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, said: "My whole arm from my shoulder to my wrist swelled up to five times its normal size and I lost the use of my arm." After seven operations in three weeks, he was flown back to Britain for a course of antibiotics, which cleared the infection.