War News for Monday, October 13, 2008

KTUU News is reporting the death of Marine Corporal Kevin Karella who died in an undisclosed incident in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 9th. No other details were released. We do not have a military release on this date so we assume this to be a new death previously unreleased death.

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier non-battle related causes in a neighborhood of Baghdad on Sunday, October 12th. No other details were released.


Iraq calmer but kidnappings spread: The total kidnappings, some based on classified information. - The 1,079 foreign kidnappings since 2001 for which the hostage takers are unknown. That smaller number is drawn from public sources and includes cases in which the details of the disappearance are unverified. - The 747 kidnappings of people traveling or working in foreign countries since 2001 for which the terrorist group responsible is known. Of those, also based on unclassified information, 73 are Americans and the fates of 11 remain unknown.

Video: Under attack at Afghanistan's Seray outpost:

Pakistani police say they have arrested a 20-year-old American man close to Afghan border:


Reported Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: At least five people, including two policemen, were wounded on Monday when an improvised explosive device blast targeted a security patrol in northeastern Baghdad, an Iraqi police source said.” An IED went off on Monday near an Iraqi police patrol in Ur neighborhood, northeastern Baghdad, leaving five people, including two police personnel, injured,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq.

Around 9 am a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Ur neighborhood (northeast Baghdad). Five people were injured including three policemen.

#2: Around 10:30 am mortars hit the International Zone (IZ) downtown Baghdad. No casualties reported.


Touz Khormato:
#1: An Iraqi soldier was wounded on Monday when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off near his vehicle in central Touz Khormato district, Salah al-Din province, a security source said. “The IED exploded as an Iraqi army vehicle was passing on the Tikrit-Touz highway, leaving one soldier wounded and damaging his vehicle,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq.


Mosul:
#1: Iraqi police say a Christian music store owner has been shot to death in the northern city of Mosul. Sunday's shooting is the latest in a series of killings of Christians that has caused thousands of members of the tiny religious community to flee the volatile city. A police official said Monday that gunmen stormed into the man's store, killing him and wounding his nephew.

#2: A car bomb killed two prison security guards on Sunday in western Mosul. Two other guards and a civilian were also wounded, polcie said.

#3: Gunmen stormed the house of a policeman and killed him on Sunday in Mosul, police said.



Afghanistan:
#1: The U.S. coalition says its troops have killed five Taliban militants in a raid in central Afghanistan. A coalition statement Monday says troops targeted a militant involved in the movement of foreign fighters in Andar district of Ghazni province. The statement says five militants, including the target of the raid, were killed.

#2: In the first incident occurred in Spairi district Sunday afternoon, seven employees of a local company Ganj-e-Hazor were killed and five others sustained injures as a mine planted by Taliban went off, Mohammad Azam, the district chief of Spairi, told Xinhua.

#3: The second incident took place in Khost city, capital of Khost province, where militants fired rockets hitting a residential house, killing two persons including a woman and wounding two children, police chief of the province Abdul Qayum Baqizai told Xinhua.

#4: Meantime, a press release of Afghan Defense Ministry issued here Monday said that three soldiers of Afghan national army were injured as a mine struck their vehicle in the troubled southern Helmand province on Sunday.

#5: Pakistani security forces backed by helicopter gunships killed more than two dozen al Qaeda-linked militants in a troubled tribal region on the Afghan border, officials said on Monday.