War News for Thursday, March 05, 2009

KRQE News 13 is reporting the death of Army Staff Sgt. Daniel Tallouzi at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington D.C. on Saturday, February 28th. He was wounded at the Taji air base in Iraq during a mortar attack on an undisclosed date in September 2006.


360,000 veterans may have brain injuries: Pentagon officials estimated for the first time Wednesday that up to 360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries. Among them are 45,000 to 90,000 veterans whose symptoms persist and warrant specialized care.

However a total of 258 Iraqis were killed in violence in February, a sharp rise from the previous month that saw the lowest casualty figures since the March 2003 US-led invasion, according to government statistics.

Tampa Contractor Killed In Afghanistan -- Santos Cardona

Kyrgyzstan open to air base talks with US:

Kyrgyzstan says U.S. base closure is final:

Bomb blast kills six in Russia's Ingushetia:

British troops’ role in stabilizing Iraq ‘negligible’:


Baghdad:
#1: In Baghdad Thursday, gunmen ambushed an Interior Ministry official on his way to work, said an Iraqi police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

Gunmen in a car shot and wounded police Brigadier-General Salam Salman while he was heading to work in central Baghdad, police said.

#2: A policeman was killed on Thursday by unknown gunmen in central Baghdad, a police source said. “Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a police officer on Thursday morning (March 5) in al-Nedal street in central Baghdad,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#3: Three civilians were wounded on Thursday in a bomb blast in western Baghdad, a police source said. “An improvised explosive device went off on Thursday (March 5) targeting a police vehicle patrol in al-Nussour square in western Baghdad, injuring three civilians,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Hilla:
#1: A car bomb exploded Thursday in a crowded cattle market south of Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and injuring 60 others, Iraqi police and medical officials said. The parked car exploded at the height of the morning buying and selling at the market on the outskirts of Hillah, 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Baghdad, said Iraqi police Maj. Muthana Khalid. The blast scattered bodies and animal carcasses throughout the market, a witness said. All the dead and injured in Thursday's bombing were civilians, Khalid said. Dr. Hussam al-Janabi, a medical official in Hillah, confirmed the casualty figures. The U.S. military put the casualty toll at 10 dead and 56 wounded.


Tikrit:
#1: A roadside bomb wounded Muhsin Taha al-Mismar, the head of the education office of Salahuddin Province, in a town near the city of Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. Mismar's driver was also wounded in the blast.


Samarra:
#1: A U.S. backed neighbourhood patrol raided a house where it found nine tonnes of explosives and weapons and arrested seven insurgents, near the city of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, said Khalid al-Bazee, the head of the neighborhood patrols in Samarra.


Mosul:
#1: An Iraq soldier was killed and three others were injured by a parked car bomb in north Mosul city around 3 p.m.

#2: A sniper shot dead an Iraq soldier in west Mosul city on Wednesday evening.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: At least four security men were injured in a rocket attack in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, a local TV channel SAMA reported. Militants fired a rocket at a police station in Derra Adam Khel, a town in North West Frontier Province, said the report. Security forces started firing back on militants after the rocket hit the police station, according to the SAMA.

#2: Five missiles fired by insurgents hit Faizabad, the provincial capital of peaceful Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan early Thursday, causing panic among the locals, provincial governor Abdul Majid said. "It was wee hours of Thursday that five missiles were fired from Dushakh Mountain in south direction landed around a police base but caused no damage," Majid told Xinhua.

#3: Unknown gunmen exploded the shrine of Rahman Baba, a famous Afghan Pashto language poet in Pakistan’s Peshawar city this morning. The action caused severe reactions of the Afghan government and intellectuals. Afghanistan’s ministry of information and culture, in a press release today, urged the Pakistani authorities to investigate this action and bring to court the doers of it.