The present-day U.S. military qualifies by any measure as highly professional, much more so than its Cold War predecessor. Yet the purpose of today’s professionals is not to preserve peace but to fight unending wars in distant places. Intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. forces have destroyed many targets and killed many people. Only rarely, however, have they succeeded in accomplishing their assigned political purposes. . . . [F]rom our present vantage point, it becomes apparent that the “Revolution of ‘89” did not initiate a new era of history. At most, the events of that year fostered various unhelpful illusions that impeded our capacity to recognize and respond to the forces of change that actually matter.

Andrew Bacevich


Monday, February 4, 2008

War News for Monday, February 04, 2008

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier in an RPG attack in an eastern neighborhood of Baghdad on Thursday, January 31st.


Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle while the Soldier was on patrol in eastern Baghdad Jan. 31.

#2: Two people were wounded by a roadside bomb planted under their car in northwestern Baghdad's Hurriya district, police said.

#3: Two policemen were wounded by a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad, police said.

#4: Gunmen killed a foreign ministry official in a drive-by shooting in western Baghdad's Mansour district, police said.

#5: At noon, an IED targeted an American patrol at Zayouna neighborhood near Thulatha shopping center ( east Baghdad). No casualties reported

#6: A roadside bomb killed three soldiers and wounded two others when it struck their vehicle in northern Baghdad's Adhamiya district, a member of a neighbourhood police unit said. Two members of the local police unit were wounded in gunfire which broke out after the blast, he said.

#7: Police found two unidentified dead bodies in Baghdad today : ( one ) was found in Ubaidi in east Baghdad ( Risafa bank) and the other was found in Amil neighborhood in west Baghdad ( Karkh bank).


Diyala Prv:
#1: A bomb exploded inside an office at the Diyala provincial headquarters Sunday and wounded a local politician and two American soldiers who were meeting, according to Iraqi police officials. The explosion also wounded two additional local government employees outside the room. After the attack, American soldiers sealed off the building and, together with the Iraqi authorities, enforced an indefinite curfew. Iraqi police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to the media, said that the wounded Iraqi politician was Husayn Zubaidi, head of the provincial council security committee.

Baquba:
#1: Around noon, gunmen opened fire on a civilian car ( Kia mini bus model) near Abu Saida intersection ( 20 km east of Baquba ) .The driver was killed with one of its passengers who were only 7 years old girl and her brother was injured who is only 4 years old

#2: Around 4 p.m., gunmen broke into one of the houses at Tahreer neighborhood in Baquba city kidnapping the owner whose dead body was found in the area after an hour of the kidnapping.

Baquba:
#1: Gunmen killed the driver of a minibus and a girl in a drive by-shooting near Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. The girl's brother was wounded.


Iskandariya:
#1: The U.S. military said Monday that it had accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al-Qaida in Iraq - the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in recent months. The civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the Iraqi capital, U.S. Navy Lt. Patrick Evans told The Associated Press. Evans did not give details about exactly how the people died, but said the killings occurred as U.S. forces pursued suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants. The incident is under investigation, he said. Iraqi police said the victims, including two women, were in two houses in the village of Tal al-Samar, which was bombed by American warplanes late Saturday.


Salman Pek:
#1: Iraqi and U.S. forces killed seven gunmen, wounded another one and arrested 28 suspects during air assaults targeting al Qaeda near Salman Pak, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.


Basra:
#1: police disabled three bombs planted near an oil well in northern Basra.

#2: Around 9.30 a.m., a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol at Al-Maqal neighborhood (north Basra) .No casualties recorded ,but some damage to the police vehicle.

#3: Around 4.30 p.m., gunmen kidnapped two cleric men who represent Ayyat Allah Imam Ali Sistani in Basra city .Those two men are Ali Hassan Al-Khafaji (Imam of Al-Mudhafar mosque) and Abdul Rahman Al-Idreesi ( the lecturer of Imam Abass school in Basra city ) who were having a trip in a car at Tuayssa neighborhood near Lebanon casino ( downtown Basra city) when the gunmen kidnapped them. An hour later, kidnappers called for a ransom of 100,000 thousands dollars.


Shirqat:
#1: Iraqi security forces have raided villages in the northern province of Salahudin, killing four suspected insurgents and detained 76 others, a provincial police source said on Monday. "A joint police and Iraqi Army force on Sunday raided a cluster of villages outside the town of Shirqat, some 280 km north of Baghdad, with the aim of chasing al-Qaida militants who killed four members of the local Awakening Council group," Colonel Hassan Ahmad of the province police command, told Xinhua.


Kirkuk:
#1: Unidentified gunmen detonated a branch oil pipeline southwest of Kirkuk on Monday, setting it ablaze as fire brigades trying to control the fire, an official security source said."Saboteurs blew up a pipeline carrying oil from the Kirkuk fields to Baiji in a site near the al-Janana village, al-Riad district, (35 km southwest of Kirkuk), setting it on fire," the source, who is from the oil facilities protection department, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq


Irbil Prv:
#1: Five Turkish fighter jets bombed suspected Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq Monday, a senior Kurdish official said. No casualties were reported. The raid lasted one hour early Monday in an area inside Iraq along the country's northern border with Turkey, said Jabbar Yawar, an undersecretary at the ministry governing the Kurdistan regional government's Peshmerga forces. The area includes the towns of Khnera, Khwakurd and Sidakan in Irbil province, he said.



Afghanistan:
#1: An air strike targeting a Taliban commander has killed seven civilians from one family in southwestern Afghanistan, provincial officials said on Monday. The air strike took place in the Bakwa district of Farah province late on Sunday and killed one woman, two children and four men, officials said.

#2: Meanwhile, Afghan forces killed nearly 10 Taliban fighters during a sweep in the Deh Rawood district of Uruzgan province on Sunday, provincial police chief Juma Gul Hemat said. The operation, led by Afghan police, was still going on, he said.

#3: In southern Helmand province, foreign troops raided the house of another Taliban suspect near the capital of Lashkar Gah, killing him and wounding his 8-year-old daughter, said provincial police Chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal.

0 comments: