War News for Saturday, December 06, 2008

The Canadian DND is reporting the deaths of Three Canadian ISAF soldiers from an IED attack in the Arghandab District, approximately 15 kilometers west of Kandahar City, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on Friday, December 5th.


Insurgent group sieze Somali town:

Sri Lanka: Part of rebel-held highway seized:

Five Blackwater guards charged in Iraqi shooting:

101st soldiers to be arraigned in Iraqi's death:

101st soldier gets 40 years in beating death of infant:

U.S. study looks at soldiers' injuries:

U.S. spells out Iraq mission under new pact:

Pentagon expanding number of aliens recruited: Here's the DoD article--Military Recruits Non-citizen Health Care Workers, Linguists:

Karl Rove launches 'Bush legacy project' with Iraq war claim (get your vomit bags out...)


Reported Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: A bomb attached to a pickup truck killed one person and wounded three people in southern Baghdad, police said.

One bomb attached to a police truck exploded near a popular vegetable market in southern Baghdad, killing a Sunni tribal leader, part of a group that has joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida, and his driver, Iraqi officials said. The attack occurred about 10:30 a.m. just as the truck was leaving the wholesale market in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, where farmers bring their vegetables to sell, said an Iraqi police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

#2: A roadside bomb wounded two people in the al-Qahira neighbourhood of northern Baghdad, police said.


Diyala Prv:
Baaquba:
#1: Two Awakening Council group fighters were killed and two others injured on Saturday in a gunfire attack on a security checkpoint in the city of Baquba, capital of the volatile province of Diyala, a provincial police source said. "Unknown gunmen attacked early in the morning a security checkpoint manned by Awaking Council Fighters and policemen in theal-Wajihiyah town some 12 km northeast of the provincial capital Baquba," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The attack resulted in the killing of two fighters and the wounding of two others, the source said.

Also Saturday, three other members of a U.S.-allied group were killed and four wounded during an ambush by gunmen at a checkpoint near Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, a Diyala provincial police officer said.

#2: Gunmen attacked the Sahwa office in al-Isaiwid village, 20 km to the east of Baquba. The attack began at around 1.30 a.m. Saturday. Three Sahwa members were killed and one was injured.

#3: A bomb exploded inside a cafe near Baquba on Saturday, wounding 18 people, including eight members of a local Awakening Council, police said. Baquba is 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

Balad Ruz:
#1: The incident came a day after two Iraqi children and their mother were killed by a bomb explosion was hidden in a radio apparatus in the town of Balad Ruz, in the Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad.

Three teenage girls were killed in Iraq on Friday, two of them sisters, when one of them found a tape recorder wired with explosives and brought it inside their house, security officials said.
The incident took place in the town of Balad Ruz...

Khanaqin:
#1: A gunman was killed while attempting to plant an explosive charge near a public road in Diala’s Khanaqin district, an official security source said on Saturday.


Iskandariya:
#1: Four Iraqi children were killed on Saturday by a bomb explosion in the town of Iskandriyah, south of Baghdad, a local police source said. The incident occurred before midday as children less than eight years old were playing football in a popular playing field near their houses in the town, some 50 km south of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.


Abu Ghraib:
#1: Two Iraqi Army servicemen were killed by sniper fire in Abu Ghraib, late Thursday afternoon.


Tuz Khurmato:
#1: Two persons on Saturday were wounded in an explosive device blast that occurred in southern Kirkuk district, a local security source said. “Two persons, including an Iraqi serviceman, were injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) stuck to a soldier’s vehicle went off in Touz Khormato district (80 km south of Kirkuk city),” the source told Aswat al-Iraq.“The soldier was seriously wounded,” the source noted.


Kirkuk:
#1: A suicide bomber targeted police recruits Saturday near a checkpoint in northern Iraq, killing at least one and wounding 14, an Iraqi police official said. Police Brig. Gen. Burhan Tayeb Taha said the suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt about 8:30 a.m. while approaching a checkpoint near a police academy in the Iraqi oil town of Kirkuk. Early reports show the bomber killed one police recruit and wounded 10 others, he said, adding the bomber also wounded four civilians. The explosion occurred during a recruiting drive at the academy, added police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir.


Mosul:
#1: A roadside bomb wounded two policemen in western Mosul, 390 km (240 km) north of Baghdad, police said.


Kurdistan:
#1: Turkey's military says its air force has attacked Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.
It says the jets bombed Iraq's Qandil mountains on Friday. The military believes that is where Kurdish rebel leaders are hiding and Kurdish insurgents are training. As usual, the military did not say whether the attack resulted in casualties.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: One policeman was killed during a fight that broke out between a group of policemen in Fallujah. Three policemen have been detained and one policeman escaped and is now being searched for. The investigation is ongoing but reasons behind the fight are still unknown.



Afghanistan:
#1: In an unrelated incident, earlier on the same day, two Canadian soldiers were seriously injured when an improvised explosive device detonated in the vicinity of a joint Canadian - Afghan foot patrol in Zharey District. The incident occurred at approximately 8:00 a.m., Kandahar time, approximately 30 kilometers west of Kandahar City.

#2: During an inspection of a IED blast site near Shar-e Safi in Zabul Province, a vehicle approached ISAF troops and failed to respond to warning signals stop to during the afternoon of Dec. 4. Following established ‘escalation of force’ procedures by ISAF troops, warning shots were fired and one disabling shot was directed at the vehicle. It is believed that the round ricocheted, injuring one civilian. The civilian was treated on the scene and evacuated by helicopter to Forward Operating Base Lagman for further treatment.

#3: update The death toll from an overnight car bombing rose to 29 in northwest Pakistan. About 100 people were also wounded Friday when the bomb went off near Peshawar's famed Storytellers Bazaar.

#4: A missile strike by a suspected US drone killed at least four militants Friday in a Pakistani tribal district. Reports say that 'a missile fired by a suspected US drone killed four people outside the town of Mir Ali in Miranshah tribal district.' Local officials confirmed the strike and said it targeted the houses of a suspected Taliban militant north of Mir Ali. Many others were also injured in the attack.

#5: Two civilians have been killed and six others wounded in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Saturday, the British military said. It was not immediately clear how the civilians were hurt, but local media said the casualties were the result of a foreign military air strike. "This morning two dead and six injured civilians were brought to our medical facility near Naad Ali and the four most seriously injured were moved to our medical facility at Camp Bastion," Commander Paula Rowe, spokeswoman for the British army in Afghanistan said. Naad Ali district is in Helmand, the main opium growing region where mostly British forces are engaged in daily gunbattles with Taliban insurgents.


Casualty Reports:

Army Spec. Alex Lozano was on a routine security detail in Baghdad three weeks ago when a bullet, which pierced the torso of the 21-year-old East Lyme High School graduate, eventually causing him to lose a kidney. He is now recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. The bullet struck him in the right side of his back and exited his front left, leaving a “half-dollar sized wound,” as his mother put it.