War News for Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sadr offers support for Iraq army:

Young real estate entrepreneurs link US and Iraq:

G.I.’s Find Bullets Still Flying at Outpost in Iraq:


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Four civilians were killed and four others wounded in a blast from an improvised explosive device (IED) in northern Baghdad late Friday night, a police source said. “An IED went off inside al-No’man Park in al-Adhamiya neighborhood, northern Baghdad, leaving four civilians killed and eight others wounded,” the source, who requested not to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Tal Afar:
#1: Insurgents attacked players and spectators at a soccer game on Friday in volatile northern Iraq, killing eight and wounding 120 as al Qaeda warned of "dark days coloured in blood" for the country's Shiite majority. One attacker drove a pickup truck full of explosives onto the soccer pitch, targeting athletes, while two suicide bombers strolled into the crowd of onlookers, witnesses said. The blasts took place in Tal Afar, a town predominantly inhabited by Shiite Turkmen about 60 kilometres west of the violent city of Mosul, where Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda remain active.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: Armed men using silenced weapons killed a policeman and a civilian security guard in central Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.




Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Militants armed with assault rifles kidnapped about 60 people in a troubled tribal region in northwest Pakistan on Saturday after ambushing their vehicles, police said. The hostages in the Kurram region included women and children, though it was not clear how many, area police chief Chaman Mir said. The group was headed to the northwestern city of Peshawar in 10 vehicles when they were ambushed. Details of the kidnapping were sketchy and Mir said police were trying to trace and recover the hostages, who were all believed to be Pakistanis.

#2: A NATO helicopter in Afghanistan has been forced to make an emergency landing, which resulted in the injury of some foreign and Afghan troops. The incident occurred in the Arghandab province on Saturday. There have been no immediate reports of the number of casualties as of yet.

#3: In southern Zabul province, a bridge on a highway linking the province with neighboring Kandahar, was blown up with explosives, according to Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar, spokesman for provincial governor of Zabul. Traffic was being diverted around the explosion site in Shahrasafa district. No one was injured.

#4: an ambush of a vehicle convoy between the Gelan and Muqur districts of eastern Ghazni province, killing five private security guards working as escorts, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Three oil tankers in the convoy burned during the fighting, the ministry said. For its part, the Defense Ministry said Afghan National Army troops and national police tracked the insurgents who led the ambush and killed six in an ensuing gunbattle.

#5: In the Achin district of Nangahar, militants fired rockets Friday night toward the district government headquarters, provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said. The rockets missed their target, he said, and one landed on a civilian home and injured four women—one hospitalized in serious condition.

#6: In another incident in Helmand Friday, a roadside bomb against a vehicle in Lashkar Gah, the capital, injured two civilians, the Interior Ministry said. Militants also staged an attack against a police vehicle in neighboring Marjah district—but only four civilians were injured, no officers, it said.

#7: At least three security personnel were injured on Saturday when a remote-controlled bomb blast hit a caravan of security forces in southwest Pakistan's Balochistan province, local media reported. Two soldiers and a driver were injured in the blast near a security vehicle in Kalat division of Balochistan, according to the private TV Express.

#8: Meanwhile, a natural gas pipeline was destroyed by a bomb blast in Sariab area of the Balochistan province. It disconnected natural gas supply to Sariab area, local gas company sources said Saturday.