War News for Saturday, January 23, 2010

The British MoD is reporting the death of a British ISAF soldier in an IED attack in Helmand province, Afghanistan on Friday, January 22nd.

The Washington Post is reporting the deaths of two American soldiers in a roadside bombing in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, January 23rd.


C.I.A. Deaths Prompt Surge in U.S. Drone Strikes:

US Marine Corps ends role in Iraq:Saudi:

Bodies of 20 soldiers found on Yemen border:


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Police found 10 bombs planted on a school bus in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, police said.

#2: A roadside bomb targeting a car carrying a brigadier general of the Interior Ministry, Sahban Ali, wounded him and two of his bodyguards near his house in Zayouna district, eastern Baghdad, on Friday night, police said.

#3: A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol wounded two soldiers in the Yarmouk district of western Baghdad on Friday night, police said


Mosul:
#1: Policemen on Saturday found the remains of three persons in northern Mosul city, according to a police source in Ninewa. “The remains of bodies of three persons who had been kidnapped and killed in 2007 were found buried in the area of al-Rashidiya, northern Mosul,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: Gunmen killed a civilian in front of his house in western Mosul city on Saturday, said a local security source from Ninewa province. “Gunmen in a vehicle opened drive-by fire on the civilian in front of his house at al-Tanak neighborhood,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#3: One policeman was wounded on Saturday when two mortars hit a police command headquarters in western Mosul city, a local police source in Ninewa said. “The attack targeted Umm-al-Rabiain police command HQ at al-Sheikh Fatihee area,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: A civilian man was wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in al-Haqlaniya district, western al-Anbar province, on Saturday, a local security source said. “A sticky IED attached to a civilian vehicle went off on a road in Haqlaniya, injuring the driver and causing damage to the vehicle,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Militants hiding among demonstrators fired on police Saturday, sparking a gunbattle in the middle of a protest over the deaths of four men in a NATO-Afghan raid, officials said. At least two people were wounded. Protesters have taken to the streets for three straight days and have blocked traffic on a highway that links the major cities of Kabul and Kandahar, forcing trucks and vehicles to wait for hours. The protest Saturday turned violent when armed militants hiding in the crowd began shooting at police, according to the district's chief administrator, Yasouf Saraji Andar. "Policemen also opened fire to defend themselves and two people were wounded," he said.

#2: North of the capital, a NATO helicopter was damaged Saturday when its front rotor blade accidentally struck the ground upon landing in the Parwan province. There were no injuries and no hostile action was involved, the international force said.

#3: A provincial governor also escaped an assassination attempt Friday while traveling to inspect a school southwest of Kabul, but four Afghan soldiers in his convoy were killed in the bombing, a spokesman said. Halim Fidai, the governor of Wardak province, was on his way to the school after meeting with elders in the Jagatu district when the roadside bomb exploded.
The governor was unharmed, but four Afghan soldiers in a different vehicle were killed and another was wounded, according to the governor's spokesman Shahidullah Shahid, who also was in the convoy.

#4: A policeman was killed and another wounded in a gunbattle after suspected Taliban militants ambushed a checkpoint in the Baghlan province, according to the provincial government.

#5: Militants kidnapped a district police chief and two other officers on a nighttime foot patrol Saturday near the eastern border with Pakistan, a senior official said, the latest in a series of attacks against Afghan officials linked to the fight against the Taliban. A search was under way for Jamtullah Khan and two of his men after they were seized in the Shigal district of Kunar province just after 1 a.m., according to the provincial police chief. Gen. Khalilullah Zaiyie said reinforcements had been sent to help with the manhunt.

#6: Militants ambushed Pakistani security forces at checkpoints near the Afghan border Saturday, sparking gunbattles that left 22 insurgents and two troops dead, officials said.

#7: Government officials Mohammad Yasin and Mohammad Naseem said two more troops were wounded in clashes at checkpoints in the Orakzai and Kurram tribal regions. (pakistan)

#8: Elsewhere in the northwest, meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed a police officer and wounded two civilians, police said. (pakistan)

#9: Taliban militants on Saturday attacked and destroyed a fuel tanker in northwest Pakistan supplying NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, police said. A group of 15 armed militants ambushed the truck outside Peshawar and opened fire. "They ordered the driver and the assistant to get down and set the tanker on fire early Saturday morning," senior police official Mohammad Karim Khan told AFP.

#10: Elsewhere, gunmen on a motorbike shot dead two soldiers on Saturday in the oil and gas rich Baluchistan province, which is in the grip of a tribal insurgency and violence linked to Taliban militants, officials said. The incident took place in Khuzdar town, 350 kilometres (217 miles) south of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan. "Two armed gunmen chased four army personnel, who were travelling in a vehicle and sprayed bullets on them in a market in Khuzdar, killing two of them and wounding two others," district police chief Nazir Ahmad Kurd said.

#10: Three Afghan women were killed and three other civilians were wounded by insurgent small-arms fire while in a taxi in southeastern Paktika province, the NATO-led force said. The taxi driver brought the wounded to a NATO-led base where they received medical treatment, it said.

#11: Afghan and international forces killed 12 Taliban militants during an operation in the Gereshk district of southern Helmand province on Friday night, district governor Abdul Ahad said.

#12: Two women were wounded when a mortar bomb fired by Pakistani troops at a militant hideout fell on a house in Mohmand, another Pashtun region on the Afghan border, witnesses and government officials said. (pakistan)


DoD: Staff Sgt. Thaddeus S. Montgomery

DoD: Capt. Paul Pena