War News for Friday, October 03, 2008

MNF Iraq is reporting the death of an American soldier in a roadside bombing south of Amarah, Iraq on Thursday, October 2nd. No other details were released.


Oct. 1 airpower summary:

Taliban leader rejects talks with Afghan government:

U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media: The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government. (Hmmmmm so we're pushing Fox news is on the Iraqi people.)

Military relied on bonuses to lure new recruits:


Reported Security incidents:

Sulaiman Pek:
#1: A roadside bomb wounded two people when it struck a police patrol in Sulaiman Pek, 160 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Al Sulmaniyah region:
#1: Turkish warplanes bombed Thursday evening mountainous areas in al-Sulmaniyah region north of Iraq, a Kurdish source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Friday. 'Turkish planes bombed Kandil Mountains for three and a half hours,' the source said. Sulmaniyah is located some 350 kilometres north-east the Iraqi capital Baghdad. No casualties were reported from the bombing, the source said.


Mosul:
#1: Police forces raided a house late Thursday in al-Wehda neighborhood in southeastern Mosul, where they killed a gunman during clashes and arrested four others,” Brig. Khaled Abdul Sattar told Aswat al-Iraq.




Afghanistan:
#1: The U.S. military says a militant attack on their patrol in eastern Afghanistan killed an Afghan civilian and wounded four others. In a statement, the military says a joint U.S.-Afghan force was patrolling in the village of Matin in Kunar province Friday, when militants fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire on them. There were no casualties among U.S. and Afghan troops, but civilians working their fields near the patrol were hit.

#2: Sirens announcing Taliban rocket attacks have sent thousands of soldiers and civilians at the headquarters of Canada's Afghan mission scurrying to shelters six times over the past eight days. Several injuries resulted from the recent blasts, but the officer in charge of base security says the attacks don't represent a new level of threat to the base and maintains that the hundreds of rockets lobbed into Kandahar Airfield over the past three years haven't affected its operations -- or its safety. The base has been averaging five rocket attacks a month for the past three years, said Fryer. Although the six recent alarms are more frequent than usual -- and produced what Fryer called "a small handful" of injuries -- those attacks had been the first all September. The rockets used are 107- millimetre weapons designed in the Soviet era. Although they pack a significant punch, they're impossible to aim precisely and include a high number of duds.