War News for Saturday, December 25, 2010

Iraq Oil Min:Ctrl Govt To Recognize Oil Deals Inked By Kurdistan

Top US general visits troops in Afghanistan


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Four persons, including three policemen, have been injured in an explosive charge blast north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Saturday, a Baghdad security source said. “An improvised explosive charge (IED), planted on the roadside close Abdul-Muhsin al-Kadhimy Square in northern Baghdad’s Kadhimiya district, blew off against a police patrol, injuring 4 persons, including 3 policemen,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: “A group of armed men, driving a fast car, opened machinegun fire on an Iraqi Army checkpoint, close to a court in soutwest Baghdad’s Bayaa district, wounding two soldiers,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. He said that eyewitnesses gave the description of the car, which the armed men used in the attack, before they escaped, in order to chase the vehicle up and detain the attackers, whilst the two wounded soldiers were driven to the nearby Yarmouk Hospital for treatment.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives-laden vest killing at least 41 people at an aid distribution centre in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday. The bomber struck in the main city in Bajur, a region near the Afghan border. In Bajur, the bomber, dressed in a traditional women's burqa, first lobbed two hand grenades into the crowd waiting at a checkpoint outside the food aid distribution centre in the town of Khar, local police official Fazal-e-Rabbi Khan said. The attacker then detonated her explosives vest, he said. Local government official Tariq Khan said the blast also wounded 60 people, some of them critically, of about 300 who were at the scene.

#2: An official says Pakistani army helicopter gunships and artillery have killed 40 more Islamist militants in the second day of large-scale fighting near the border with Afghanistan. The fighting started yesterday in the Mohmand tribal region, when some 150 militants attacked five security posts in an unusually large and coordinated assault. The attack sparked an hours-long battle that killed 24 insurgents and 11 soldiers.

#3: A German development worker was killed by insurgents in northern Afghanistan on Friday night. Development Minister Dirk Niebel described the killing as a "cowardly attack." The aid worker, an adviser for German development bank KfW, was fatally injured when the vehicle he was travelling in was shot at. Four people were in the vehicle, a Development Ministry statement said. An Afghan travelling with him was also injured.

#4: Afghan and coalition forces killed two insurgents during two separate night raids targeting the Haqqani and Taliban networks in eastern Khost and Logar provinces on Friday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.