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, October 11, 2010

War News for Monday, October 11, 2010

NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers from separate IED attacks in undisclosed locations in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, October 10th.


U.S. Presses Iraqi Leaders to Broaden Coalition


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: A roadside bomb struck a convoy of Major General Abdul Munim Saeed, head of the department of forensic of the Interior Ministry, in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Zayouna, a police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Saeed and two passersby were injured and his driver was killed, the source said.

#2: Also in eastern Baghdad, four civilians were wounded by a roadside bombing near the Al-Shaab Football Stadium, the source added.


Al Haswa:
#1: Earlier in the day, the police said that four men were shot dead and two critically wounded when gunmen in military uniforms stormed two houses in the village of al-Haswa in the early hours of the day, near the town of Yousifiyah, some 30 km south of Baghdad.

In a pre-dawn attack in the town of Yusufiyah, gunmen wearing military uniforms hauled six men out of their homes and shot them. Four died but two survived with injuries, an interior ministry official said. Another interior ministry official said all the victims were members of the Sahwa (Awakening) militia that was instrumental in turning the tide against Al-Qaeda.


Abu Ghraib:
#1: In addition, a roadside bomb went off near an Iraqi army patrol in Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, wounding two soldiers and six civilians, including a child, the source said.


Kirkuk:
#1: The physician who was wounded on Monday when a roadside bomb went off in southern Kirkuk city was driving to work in an ambulance, said a local security source. “The blast took place near the Vegetables Market, southern Kirkuk,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. He explained that the physician was driving to work in an ambulance to avoid gunmen attacks that might target him because of his work as a physician. Earlier, the same source said that a physician was wounded on Monday when a roadside bomb went off in southern Kirkuk city. “The physician works for the Daqouk Hospital, 35 km southern Kirkuk,” a local security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: In a separate incident, a policeman was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle while on patrol in the town of al-Saqlawiyah, near Fallujah City, some 50 km west of Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

#2: Three gunmen stormed the house of a policeman and killed him in a pre-dawn attack in Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

#3: A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol wounded four policemen in Qaim, 300 km (185 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Pakistan has initiated a probe into the disappearance of 500 oil tankers and containers carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan. According to the Dawn, 500 oil tankers and containers had left Port Qasim in Karachi for Kandahar, but they did not reach the Pakistan-Afghan border near Chaman. A Pakistani customs official said that the investigation was undertaken after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of reports about the missing vehicles. "We are optimistic that we will trace the missing vehicles and their documents," the newspaper quoted the official, as saying.

#2: (not confirmed) Two Indians were killed in a missile attack launched by the Taliban on an Indian NGO’s office situated near a US airbase in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, a media report said Monday. Qari Omar Haqqani, a spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban, told reporters from an undisclosed location that the outfit had attacked the office of the Indian NGO with missiles in which three people, including two Indian workers, were killed, Pakistani daily The News International reported. The nationality of the third person who died in the attack is yet to be ascertained. Haqqani said the Taliban also fired missiles at the nearby US airbase, injuring seven soldiers of the Afghan National Army. At least 10 missiles were fired at the two places, he said.

#3: A roadside bomb exploded alongside a German convoy in Afghanistan, the German military said in Berlin late Sunday. No one was injured in Sunday's attack east of Kunduz and the convoy's vehicles also escaped damage because the bomb exploded just after the troops had passed by on their way back to their base, a military spokesman said.

#4: A US drone strike killed seven militants at a compound in Pakistan's tribal North Waziristan region Sunday, security officials said. The compound was located by a road in Shewa district about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of the region's main town of Miranshah. The drone fired four missiles at the compound and two vehicles parked outside were also destroyed, an intelligence official in Miranshah said. "At least seven militants were killed and three wounded," a security official in Peshawar said, raising his earlier casualty estimate. The casualties were confirmed by two other intelligence officials in Miranshah.

#5: Airstrike carried out by NATO-led forces late Sunday killed 15 Taliban militants in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province, provincial police chief said Monday. "Fifteen militants armed with heavy and light weapons were planing to carry out attacks on government interests in Zarmal area but an air support team of international forces pounded their position killing the rebels late Sunday," Dault Khan Zazai told Xinhua. The police chief said initial reports indicated that several foreign fighters were among those militants killed in the raid.


MoD: Sergeant Peter Anthony Rayner

DoD: Hospital Corpsman Edwin Gonzalez

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

From Reuters...

Iraq sees alarming rise in cancers, deformed babies

BAGHDAD | Tue Dec 1, 2009 10:00am GMT

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5B01I320091201?pageNumber=2

Dancewater said...

* BAGHDAD - Gunmen attacked a currency exchange bureau in central Baghdad, killing five people, wounding two and robbing it of an unspecified amount of money, an interior ministry source said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MUH123120.htm

Dancewater said...

Iraqis kill clan members for informing on al Qaeda