War News for Friday, March 23, 2012

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from non-combat related injury in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, March 22nd.


Two major U.S. oil cos interested in TAPI pipeline

General Says Afghans Need Big U.S. Force Beyond 2012


Reported security incidents
#1: Afghan police says a suicide car bomber has blown himself up at a security checkpoint outside a police station, killing two children nearby. Kandahar provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Razaq says the attacker detonated his explosives Thursday afternoon at the checkpoint for a police station in Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan. He says two police and another six civilians were wounded. Razaq says another assailant tried to enter the police station at the same time. He was shot dead by police.

#2: At least three security personnel were killed and six others injured when a check post in Pakistan's southwest district of Zhob was attacked by unknown militants on Friday morning, local media reported. Local Urdu TV channel Geo said that five security personnel also went missing during the attack. The five missing security personnel could have been kidnapped by the militants as they often did in the past. Earlier this year, 15 security personnel kidnapped by militants in a check post attack were later killed.

#3: Earlier on Friday morning, an unknown number of militants launched an attack at the Mir Ali Khalil check post in Zhob, a district located some 260 km northeast of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan. The militants fled the scene after the attack. No casualties on the side of the attackers were reported.

#4: Prior to this, a roadside remote-controlled bomb targeting a security forces' convoy injured two children in Pakistan's northwest district of Charsadda. This was followed by another remote-controlled bomb attack on a paramilitary camp in the Wana area of South Waziristan, reportedly killing one security person and injuring three others.

#5: A Taliban expert bomb maker was killed and another insurgent was injured on Friday in an air strike conducted by NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in northern Afghan province of Baghlan, the ISAF forces said. "Coalition forces killed a Taliban expert bomb maker and wounded another insurgent with a precision air strike in Baghlan-e Jadid district, Baghlan province, today," the ISAF said in a statement issued here. The air strike took place as the two insurgents emplaced two roadside bombs. One was a pressure plate device and the other was remote controlled, the statement said.

#6: According to a statement issued by the Afghan interior ministry, at least 3 armed militants were killed and injured and 10 others were detained across the country during the past 24 hours. The source further added, the militants were killed, injured and detained following joint military operations conducted by Afghan police, Afghan army, Afghan intelligence and international coalition security forces. The operations were conducted at eastern Nangarhar, southern Uruzagn, eastern Ghazni and western Herat provinces of Afghanistan, the officials added.


DoD: Sgt. Jamie D. Jarboe

MoD: Captain Rupert Bowers