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Dozens of protesters blocked a road Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, claiming U.S.-led coalition forces killed three civilians, and a local official said police fatally shot one of the protesters and injured three of them. Villagers from the area carried three bodies to a major highway during the protest. Police allegedly opened fire, killing one and wounding three. The coalition said its troops were attacked Friday while searching compounds in the Shinwar district of Nangarhar province. "Several militants were killed" and nine insurgents were arrested, the coalition said in a statement Saturday. The coalition said the operation was targeting a "foreign fighter network" and that militants in the area had recently attacked coalition forces. The troops destroyed several automatic rifles, grenades and ammunition discovered in the compounds. (Source: AP)
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Two armored Humvees were missing from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said Monday. The military was investigating whether the vehicles were stolen, although officials believed they were likely still in the possession of U.S. personnel but simply unaccounted for. The two vehicles were reported missing on May 6 from U.S. Camp Phoenix in the capital, Kabul. (Source: AP)
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The future of Pakistan's fledgling coalition government hung in the balance Monday after failed talks on how to restore judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf. The party of ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was set to discuss later in the day whether to abandon its alliance with the senior party of Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto. The relationship was forged after their victory over Musharraf's allies in February elections. It remained unclear if the rift could break up the government or force fresh elections. That would be a serious setback to Pakistan's transition to democracy after eight years of military rule under Musharraf. The new government came to power just six weeks ago. A coalition break-up could throw a political lifeline to the embattled president, who has taken a back seat in the day-to-day running of Pakistan since the new government took office. (Source: AP)
Police say gunmen have killed a Shiite Muslim shop owner and two of his customers in an apparent sectarian attack in Pakistan. Saturday's attack happened in Dera Ismail Khan, a town on the Indus River in Pakistan's northwest. Police official Abdul Ghafoor said the family of the slain shop owner had an enmity with a Sunni Muslim militant group. Shiite Muslims are a minority in overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan. The two communities co-exist peacefully in most areas. However, there have been deadly bouts of sectarian violence in the northwest this year and extremists on both sides regularly target each other. The Sunni-Shiite schism over the true heir to Islam's Prophet Muhammad dates back to the seventh century. (Source: AP)
Indian forces and suspected Islamic militants clashed Sunday in two separate incidents in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing six people, including two civilians and a news photographer.A soldier and two gunmen were also killed in the fighting, and one of the gunbattles continued to rage hours later with six suspected militants holed up in a house. In the first clash, soldiers confronted a group of gunmen who had apparently infiltrated into the area from across the de facto border with Pakistan. (Source: AP)
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The first group of Malaysian peacekeepers left the Philippines on Saturday as peace talks between the government and Muslim rebels were stalled. The stalled talks raised fears that clashes could escalate again in the troubled south. Malaysian Major General Datuk Mat Yasin Bin Mat Daud, leader of an international monitoring team, said he hopes a peace agreement will be signed soon. The withdrawal is a sign of Kuala Lumpur's impatience with the slow pace of negotiations that it has brokered to try to bring an end to more than 30 years of Muslim separatist insurgency. The departing 29 Malaysians represent half of the peacekeeping force, and the other 12 Malaysians are to depart August 31. There also are contingents from Brunei and Libya, plus one Japanese aid worker. Rebel negotiators walked away from a meeting in December to protest Manila's insistence on keeping any accord within the Philippine constitution. The Malaysian facilitator of the talks, Othman Abdul Razak, has said that if Manila "wants to stick to the constitution, things will not move." Rodolfo Garcia, the chief government negotiator, tried to allay fears that the Malaysians' departure would trigger renewed fighting between government troops and the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). (Source: AP)
Iraq Shiite groups brokered a reported cease-fire Saturday with militants fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad's Sadr City as the country's army launched an offensive in Mosul against Al Qaeda's main bastion in Iraq. Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, an aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said the cease-fire will go into effect Sunday. The cease-fire may not necessarily end the seven-week old clashes in Sadr City, the stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, as U.S. military has blamed clashes on breakaway groups. The bulk of the 60,000-strong Mahdi Army is not believed to have participated in the clashes. Instead the violence is blamed on splinter groups that have refused to honor a general cease-fire ordered by al-Sadr last August. Al-Sadr has directed his supporters to only fight when attacked. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military on the reported deal. (Source: AP)
U.S. troops fought street battles with Shiite militia in Baghdad's Sadr City, killing three people on the first full day of a deal to end fighting in the area, a military official said Monday. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover said troops came under attack in three incidents on Sunday evening and Monday morning in Sadr City, stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Stover said two "criminals" were shot dead by U.S. troops in two confrontations while the third was killed by a tank shell. (Source: AFP) United States More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show. This reliance on troops found medically “nondeployable” is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million service members to the war zones. (Source: ArmyTimes.com) The military command overseeing the nation's most elite forces has moved away from a contentious plan that gave it broad control over anti-terrorism operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots around the globe. The expanded authority for U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., was hammered through by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld well before he resigned in November 2006. The shift caused friction among leaders at other warfighting organizations who saw it an intrusion into their geographic domains. Navy Admiral Eric Olson, the command's senior officer since July 2007, has steered clear of micromanaging specific missions against Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. The command's primary focus is to ensure these plans are fused into a broader strategy for defeating extremist ideologies. That reflects Olson's position that the troops closest to the action know best how to handle it. (Source: AP) Terrorists, insurgents and other enemies of U.S. forces are likely to use more lethal weapons and some advanced fighting tactics in years to come, according to a new Army future threat assessment called “Asymmetric Threats to Current and Future U.S. Forces.” The assessment found that U.S. adversaries will likely use more unmanned aerial vehicles, improved rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank guided missiles, shoulder-fired missiles, and vehicle-mounted mortars along with small to medium arms. The threat assessment cites the possibility of vastly increased UAV use by terrorist groups or hostile foreign governments. The report found that UAVs are currently in use by more than 32 countries worldwide, and that their costs are dropping with some of them priced at $2-3,000. The threats they pose are broken up into categories by the report including chemical threats, weaponized UAVs and so-called swarm UAVs which could be used to send hundreds of football-sized UAVs packed with explosives toward a target location. Another expected area of increased focus among potential enemies is so-called technicals, commercial vehicles outfitted with weapons such as mortars or small arms, the report states. Prevalent now in Iraq and Afghanistan, technicals have been used increasingly by insurgents. For instance, the report includes photographs of vehicle-mounted 14.5mm heavy machine guns hidden from view by a tarp. “Between January and March of 2007, insurgents in Iraq shot down multiple helicopters with technicals.” Also listed in the report is a new, more lethal, tandem blast RPG 32, a weapon able to fire from longer ranges and reload faster than its predecessor, the RGP 29. The mobile, six to ten-pound RPG 32 can hit targets out to 700 meters and beyond with anti-tank, anti-personnel and thermobaric rounds. Made by a Russian-Jordanian company called Bazalt, the RPG 32s are increasing available on the open market, Combs said. Of particular concern is the likelihood that groups of RPGs will be mounted on light aircraft and fired from the air. (Source: ArmyTimes.com) U.S. authorities rushed aid to disaster areas Monday after a series of tornadoes tore across the United States, killing at least 23 people and shattering homes and businesses. U.S. President George W. Bush called it a "sad day" for devastated communities in the states of Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia and promised emergency federal aid. A total of 14 people were reported dead in Missouri, seven in Oklahoma, and two in the southeastern state of Georgia. There were also scores of injured. Numerous tornadoes touched down in Oklahoma late Saturday as the storms ripped across the state at 35-45 miles per hour (55-70 kmh), killing seven in the area near the town of Picher. Some 150 people were injured there. (Source: AFP)
Sudan severed relations with Chad on Sunday, accusing it of supporting fighters who assaulted the capital the night before, and warned that a top Darfur rebel leader was hiding somewhere in the city. A curfew was lifted in Khartoum but remained in effect in the capital's twin city of Omdurman, where rebels were still loose. The country's official news agency said more than 300 rebels were arrested Sunday across Omdurman. (Source: AP) Sudan on Monday arrested Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi and pressed its pursuit of Darfur rebels who threatened again to attack the capital as sporadic gunfire rang out across Khartoum. Two days after Darfur rebels attacked the capital's twin city of Omdurman, witnesses said gunfire could be heard in Khartoum around the U.S. embassy as government forces continued to pursue Darfur rebels believed to be hiding. Associates of prominent opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi said he and at least four members of his Popular Congress party were rounded up on Monday. The arrests come two days after an attack on the capital by Darfur rebel group the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the first time regional rebels have ever brought decades of violence so close to the seat of Sudanese power. The most powerful rebel group fighting government forces in Darfur, the JEM shares the Islamist ideology of Turabi, although both he and the rebels have always denied any links with each other. Americas The North American Aerospace Defence Command is reportedly already planning how it will protect the 2010 Olympics with potentially everything from fighter aircraft to sophisticated surveillance planes. (Source: Canada.com) Authorities quarantined a train in Ontario Friday after a woman died and several others reported being ill. But a doctor later ruled out a serious infectious disease and said the train would likely soon resume its journey. Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer, said that an elderly woman who died on the train did not have an infectious disease and the illnesses were unrelated. A passenger who was airlifted to a hospital and five others who reported being sick had unrelated minor illnesses, Williams said. He called it a confluence of three different events. (Source: AP) A reconnaissance unit from the Canadian Forces' disaster assistance response team landed in Thailand yesterday to pave the way for a possible deployment to cyclone-stricken Myanmar. The Canadian advance team touched down in Bangkok the same day that the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion calling on reclusive Myanmar to open its borders to foreign aid workers. (Source: Globe and Mail) Gunmen killed the son of one of Mexico's reputedly most-powerful drug lords in the northern city of Culiacan, a government official said Saturday. The death of Edgar Guzman, son of suspected Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin Guzman, comes as Mexico is shaken by a wave of drug-related violence as gangs battle security forces and each other for control of trafficking routes north. Edgar Guzman was shot dead in the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa on Thursday, said an official with the federal Attorney General's office who was not authorized to be quoted by name. Mexican media reports said the gunmen opened fire on Guzman in the parking lot of a shopping center in Sinaloa's capital, Culiacan. About 500 bullet casings from AK-47 rifles were found at the site, El Universal and Reforma newspapers reported. (Source: APhttp://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=105&sid=1340803) A newly disclosed set of documents that Colombia's government says were recovered from a slain rebel's computers indicate senior Venezuelan officials tried to help arm Colombia's main guerrilla army. The electronic documents, more than a dozen, were shown to The Associated Press on Friday. They detail alleged meetings between senior Venezuelan officials, including that country's chief of military intelligence and Interior Minister, and top leaders of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Some discuss the procurement of weapons, others rebel training for Venezuelan home defense forces. Venezuelan officials maintain that Bogota is manipulating the truth. (Source: AP) Asia A U.S. diplomat left North Korea on Saturday with boxes of documents detailing two decades of activities at the nuclear reactor that has been at the heart of the communist country's nuclear weapons program. Washington plans to scrutinize the technical logs from the Yongbyon reactor to see if North Korea is telling the truth about a bomb program that it has agreed to trade away for economic and political rewards. Sung Kim, the U.S. State Department's top Korea specialist, returned to South Korea by land after collecting approximately 18,000 secret papers during a three-day visit to Pyongyang. The State Department said North Korea provided the records Thursday. (Source: AP) A powerful earthquake buried 900 students in central China on Monday and killed at least 107 people, as several schools and a water tower collapsed in the tremor, state media reported. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central China, but sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand. (Source: AP) The United States delivered its first relief supplies to Myanmar on Monday, as the U.N. urged the reclusive nation to open its doors to foreign experts who can help up to 2 million cyclone victims facing disease and starvation. The unarmed military C-130 cargo plane, packed with 28,000 pounds of supplies, flew out of the Thai air force base of Utapao and landed in Yangon, capping prolonged negotiations to persuade Myanmar's military government to accept U.S. help. Several Myanmar Cabinet ministers, military officers and the top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar, Shari Villarosa, greeted the plane. (Source: AP) The lives of thousands of cyclone survivors are at extreme risk as people scramble out of the shattered Delta region to find food and shelter. Displaced people are living in appalling conditions in make-shift shelters and camps where overcrowding and unsanitary conditions are prevalent. These are the findings of a World Vision assessment team that visited 26 shelters across Myaung Mya. As thousands of villagers leave the hardest-hit areas of the Irrawaddy Delta, they embark on a journey where there is almost no food or shelter and water is contaminated by salt, human remains or animal carcasses. In Myaung Mya, an area some 50 kilometers north of the devastated town of Labutta, World Vision Myanmar staff says some 30,000 people are seeking food, water and medical attention. Children - many of them orphans, are suffering from fever, diarrhea and respiratory infections. (Source: Reuters) Police detained more than 600 female Tibetan protesters, including many Buddhist nuns, on Sunday after breaking up several demonstrations against China's recent crackdown in Tibet. It was the largest number of protesters detained on a single day since Tibetan exiles began almost daily protests in March against Chinese policies in Tibet and the first time that only women demonstrated. (Source: AP) Europe A pro-Western coalition determined to bring Serbia into the European Union made a surprisingly strong showing in parliamentary elections, but faced the specter of a protracted power struggle with rivals who vowed to join forces to form a government. The challenge cast a shadow over President Boris Tadic's claim of victory in Sunday's vote, and triggered fresh political turmoil in a country divided over whether it should join the EU or shift toward its traditional ally Russia and revert to its nationalist past. Tadic proclaimed "a great day for Serbia" after projections by an independent monitoring group and partial results from the state electoral commission gave his Coalition for a European Serbia a 10 percent lead over the ultranationalist Radical Party. (Source: AP) Air strikes launched in retaliation for a rebel raid killed 19 Kurdish fighters in Turkey's southeast, the military said Saturday. Six soldiers died in the violence. The military initially said two soldiers were killed in the attack late Friday but later raised the death toll to six, saying four more troops died while pursuing suspected rebels in Hakkari province. The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), denied the military's claims of 19 rebel deaths, saying "not a single guerrilla was killed." The European-based, pro-Kurdish news agency Firat also quoted a rebel leader, Zubeyir Aydar, as saying PKK commanders "were on top of their duties." The military called the strikes in retaliation for a PKK attack earlier Friday on a military outpost in Hakkari province, an area where the borders of Turkey, Iran and Iraq meet. Firat said the PKK attacked the station with anti-aircraft guns and mortar shells, preventing the military from sending reinforcements to the area. (Source: AP) Turkish warplanes and artillery units destroyed key Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, including a communications center, in a second day of raids on rebel positions, the military said Sunday. Turkish troops "intensely and effectively" struck rebel targets in the Avasin-Basyan area in northern Iraq late Saturday but were careful to avoid civilians or local Iraqi Kurdish forces, the military said, without giving any casualty toll. In a separate statement a few hours later, the military said it also struck a rebel "media and propaganda" center. It gave no other details. There was no immediate rebel response to the claims. (Source: AP) Middle East Palestinian militants bombarded southern Israel with rockets and mortars on Saturday, part of a new outburst of violence that threatens fragile Egyptian efforts to broker a truce in the Gaza Strip. No one was hurt in the early morning attacks. The flare-up in violence began Friday when Hamas militants fired mortar shells that killed a 48-year-old Israeli man while he was gardening at his home near the Gaza border. Three other people were wounded. Israel retaliated by firing missiles at two Hamas police stations late Friday, killing five militants. Israel said militants fired 21 rockets and four mortars by late Saturday afternoon, directly striking a house in the rocket-scarred border town of Sderot, a frequent target for militants. Another landed next to a Jewish seminary and another in the courtyard of a local college. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is expected in Israel early next week to discuss his efforts to wrest a cease-fire from the two sides. A spokesman for Hamas' armed wing said his group would "continue fire until the last moment" before a cease-fire is completed. Palestinian militants frequently shoot crude rockets and mortars into southern Israel from Gaza. The attacks, which have killed 14 people since late 2001, often provoke Israeli airstrikes and ground incursions that kill far more Palestinians. Hostilities have ebbed since more than 120 Palestinians died in a a broad Israeli military offensive two months ago. Though both sides appear eager to halt the fighting, Hamas also wants Israel to end its blockade of Gaza, which is meant to pressure the group to stop Palestinian militants from firing their salvos into Israel. (Source: AP) A member of the militant group Hamas has been killed in an explosion along Gaza's fence with Israel, the group said Sunday. The Islamic group's military wing says the member was killed and another injured during a "holy mission." Such language is used when explosives meant for an attack on Israel explode prematurely. Israel's army said it was not operating in the area at the time of the explosion early Sunday. Fighting has escalated since an Israeli man was killed in a mortar shell attack on southern Israel on Friday. In retaliation, Israeli forces fired missiles that killed five Hamas militants. (Source: AP) A Palestinian rocket landed in Sderot near a bus carrying schoolchildren on Sunday. The bus windows were shattered, a fire broke out nearby, and three children were treated for shock. (Source: Ynet News) The first Palestinian rocket that struck Ashkelon on Monday landed near an elementary school. One woman suffered from shock and several houses sustained damage. Another landed in the Ashkelon. (Source: Ynet News) Hezbollah gunmen melted off the streets of Beirut Saturday, heeding an army call to pull the fighters out after the Shiite militants demonstrated their military might in a power struggle with the U.S.-backed government. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, in his first public statement since sectarian clashes erupted on Wednesday, said Lebanon can no longer tolerate Hezbollah having weapons. He called on the army to restore law and order and remove gunmen from the streets. Despite his tough talk, Saniora made a key concession to the Hezbollah-led opposition that would effectively shelve the two government decisions that sparked the fighting. At least 12 people were killed and 20 wounded when pro- and anti-government groups fought in a remote region of northern Lebanon. (Source: AP) U.S. intelligence officials now reportedly suspect that Iran helped finance the secret nuclear reactor project in Syria. Syria is believed to lack the resources needed for the high costs associated with the large reactor complex and building containing a plutonium reactor at al Kibar, in a remote area of eastern Syria new the Euphrates River. The agreement between North Korea and Syria to build the reactor was developed in the late 1990s or early 2000s and by 2007 the reactor was nearly complete. The Israelis carried out an airstrike on the facility in September 6, knocking out the facility and revealing to both the Syrians and North Koreans that the secret reactor had been compromised. (Source: geostrategy-direct.com) According to U.S. officials, European intelligence officials and diplomats, North Korean businessman Ho Jin Yun's Namchongang Trading (NCG) provided the critical link between Pyongyang and Damascus, acquiring key materials from vendors in China and probably from Europe, and secretly transferring them to a construction site near the Syrian town of Al Kibar. Western spy agencies were able to track the movement of NCG employees and purchases to Syria in 2003, where the outlines of the reactor scheme eventually became apparent. The Syrian site was closely scrutinized by Western intelligence officials for months before it was destroyed by Israel. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen said, "The reactor which was being built was not very far from being operational and needed to be hit. U.S. officials say that as the government cleared the site of debris after the bombing, some telltale reactor components that had been deliberately hidden became visible. (Source: Washington Post) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/10/AR2008051002810.html Syria went to extraordinary lengths to conceal its undeclared construction of a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor from spies in the sky and on the ground in recent years, according to a draft report by independent nuclear experts briefed by Bush administration officials. The effectiveness of the camouflage effort raises new doubts about the prospects for certain detection of future clandestine nuclear weapons-related activities, the Institute for Science and International Security concluded in its report on the Syrian facility. U.S. intelligence officials last month released images of the Syrian facility before it was bombed by Israel last September and bulldozed by the Syrian government once the raid became public. U.S. and Israeli officials have said the facility was a nearly completed nuclear reactor built with North Korean help and fitted with a false roof and walls that altered its shape when viewed from above. According to the ISIS report to be released this week, the fake roof was just the start. Syrian engineers went to "astonishing lengths" to hide cooling and ventilation systems, power lines and other features that normally are telltale signs of a nuclear reactor, authors David Albright and Paul Brannan wrote. For example, the main building appears small and shallow from the air, but it was evidently built over large underground chambers, tens of meters in depth, that were large enough to house the nuclear reactor, as well as a reserve water-storage tank and pools for spent fuel rods. An extensive network of electrical lines appears to have been buried in trenches. Traditional water-cooling towers were replaced with an elaborate underground system that discharged into the Euphrates River. And, instead of using smokestack-like ventilation towers prominent at many reactor sites, the ventilation system appears to have been built along the walls of the building, with louver openings not visible from the air, the authors contended. (Source: Washington Post) At least 40 developing countries from the Persian Gulf region to Latin America have recently approached U.N. officials here to signal interest in starting nuclear power programs, a trend that concerned proliferation experts say could provide the building blocks of nuclear arsenals in some of those nations. At least half a dozen countries have also said in the past four years that they are specifically planning to conduct enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel, a prospect that could dramatically expand the global supply of plutonium and enriched uranium, according to U.S. and international nuclear officials and arms-control experts. Much of the new interest is driven by economic considerations, particularly the soaring cost of fossil fuels. But for some Middle Eastern states with ready access to huge stocks of oil or natural gas, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the investment in nuclear power appears to be linked partly to concerns about a future regional arms race stoked in part by Iran's alleged interest in such an arsenal (Source: Washington Post) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/11/AR2008051102212.html  Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University TrackBackTrackBack URL for this entry: News FeedSearchBlogrollBlogs of War Counterterrorism Blog Drudge Report Heritage Foundation Policy Blog Homeland Security National Terrorism Alert Huffington Post International Leadership Forum Law, Terrorism and Homeland Security Blog Milblogs Talking Points Memo Terror Free Tomorrow Think Progress TruthDig Reporting for Duty War and Piece
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