Laghman province
Afghan National Security Forces found and safely cleared an IED in Mehtar Lam district.
Operations in RC-East are ongoing.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Feb. 04., 2013. - RC-East operational update
Laghman province
Afghan National Security Forces found and safely cleared an IED in Mehtar Lam district.
Operations in RC-East are ongoing.
Mali Tuaregs seize two Islamist leaders fleeing French strikes
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| map by Evan Centanni (www.polgeonow.com) |
Pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels said they had seized Mohamed Moussa Ag Mohamed, an Islamist leader who imposed harsh sharia law in the desert town of Timbuktu, and Oumeini Ould Baba Akhmed, believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of a French hostage by the al Qaeda splinter group MUJWA.
"We chased an Islamist convoy close to the frontier and arrested the two men the day before yesterday," Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, spokesman for the MNLA, told Reuters from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. "They have been questioned and sent to Kidal."
France has deployed 3,500 ground troops, and warplanes and armoured vehicles in its three-week-old Operation Serval (Wildcat) in Mali which has broken the Islamists' 10-month grip on northern towns, where they imposed sharia law.
Paris and its international partners want to prevent the Islamists from using Mali's vast desert north as a base to launch attacks on neighbouring African countries and the West.
The MNLA, which seized control of northern Mali last year only to be pushed aside by better-armed Islamist groups, regained control of its northern stronghold of Kidal last week when Islamist fighters fled French airstrikes into the nearby desert and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.
The Tuareg group says it is willing to help the French-led mission by hunting down Islamists. It has offered to hold peace talks with the government in a bid to heal wounds between Mali's restive Saharan north and the black African-dominated south.
"Until there is a peace deal, we cannot hold national elections," Ag Assaleh said, referring to interim Malian President Dioncounda Traore's plan to hold polls on July 31.
Many in the southern capital Bamako - including army leaders who blame the MNLA for executing some of their troops at the Saharan town of Aguelhoc last year - strongly reject any talks.
French special forces took the airport in Kidal on Tuesday, reaching the most northern city previously held by the Islamist alliance. Though the MNLA says it controls Kidal, a Reuters reporter in the town saw a contingent of Chadian troops - part of a U.N.-backed African mission being deployed to help retake northern Mali - backing up French special forces there.
TARGETING REBEL BASES, DEPOTS
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said warplanes were continuing bombing raids on Islamists in Mali's far north to destroy their supply lines and flush them out of remote areas.
"The objective is to destroy their support bases, their depots because they have taken refuge in the north and north-east of the country and can only stay there in the long-term if they have the means to sustain themselves," Fabius said.
"The army is working to stop that," he told French radio.
Jets attacked rebel camps on Sunday targeting logistics bases and training camps used by the al Qaeda-linked rebels near Tessalit, close to the Algerian border.
French President Francois Hollande made a one-day trip to Mali on Saturday, promising to keep troops in the country until the job of restoring government control in the Sahel state was finished. He was welcomed as a saviour by cheering Malians.
The rebels' retreat to hideouts in the remote Adrar des Ifoghas mountains - where Paris believes they are holding seven French hostages - heralds a potentially more complicated new phase of France's intervention in its former colony.
"We are still in the same war, but we're entering a new battle," said Vincent Desportes, a French former general and now associate professor at Science-Po university in Paris.
"We will look to gradually wear out and destroy the terrorists that are sheltering in the Ifoghas. It's now a war of intelligence (services), strikes and probably action by special forces in the background."
Hollande said on Saturday that Paris would withdraw its troops from Mali once the landlocked West African nation had restored sovereignty over its territory and a U.N.-backed African military force could take over from the French soldiers.
Drawn mostly from Mali's West African neighbours, this force is expected to number more than 8,000. But its deployment has been badly hampered by shortages of kit and airlift capacity and questions about who will fund the estimated $1 billion cost.
Fabius said French soldiers may soon pull back from Timbuktu. Its residents had celebrated their liberation from the Islamists, who had handed down punishments including whipping and amputation for breaking sharia law.
The rebels also smashed sacred Sufi mausoleums and destroyed or stole some 2,000 ancient manuscripts at the South African-sponsored Baba Ahmed Institute, causing international outcry.
"A withdrawal could happen very quickly," Fabius said. "We're working towards it because we have no desire to stay there for the long-term.
from REUTERS
By Cheikh Diouara
KIDAL, Mali | Mon Feb 4, 2013 11:38am GMT
(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Daniel Flynn in Dakar and David Lewis in Timbuktu; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Jon Boyle)
Six suspected suicide bombers arrested in capital Kabul
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| (file photo) |
The suicide bombers were reportedly equipped with suicide bombing vests, weapons and hand grenades, and were arrested by Afghan security forces before they manage to carry out attacks.
Kabul security chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi quoted by Voice of America (VOA) said the suspected suicide bombers were being followed by Afghan security forces and were arrested from fourth district of Kabul city.
He did not disclose further information regarding the detained suspected bombers however he said that investigations are in process.
This comes as a number of suicide bombers carried out coordinated attacks in capital Kabul last month killing and injuring at least 44 people including Afghan security forces.
At least 35 people were killed or injured after a group militants including suicide bombers targeted Afghan spy agency compound in Kabul city on 16 January, 2013.
In the meantime a group of suicide bombes attacked traffic department on 21 January, 2013 where at least 16 people were killed or injured.
from KHAAMA
By Mirwais Adeel - 03 Feb 2013, 9:08 pm
22 killed in suicide bomb north of Baghdad
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| A suicide bomber has blown himself up near Taji, north of Baghdad prison in Iraq. (warning graphic image!)(Reuters) |
Details of the attack are still developing.
Meanwhile, another suicide bomber discharged near a group of anti-Qaeda militiamen as they were receiving their salaries in the town of Taji. The death toll is still unconfirmed, 22 have allegedly been killed, according to AFP.
The attack in Taji, follow a day after separate attacks killed 30 people in north Iraq.
A medic working in Baghdad’s Kadhimiya hospital confirmed the toll.
Sahwa militiamen, mostly Sunni Muslims who helped turn the tide of violence which engulfed Iraq in the wake of the US invasion, took up arms against Al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006. They have often been targeted by the extremist group.
The Sahwa fighters recently saw their monthly salary, paid by the government, rise to 500,000 dinars ($415) from 300,000 dinars.
Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government is hoping this gesture will appease Sunni protesters who have been demonstrating against his rule for more than a month.
Violence was also reported in other parts of Iraq on Monday and during the night.
A police lieutenant, in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Jihad, was killed and three of his colleagues wounded in a blast caused by an improvised explosive device, the ministry official and medics said.
Four people were also shot dead overnight in Kirkuk, hours after a coordinated assault on a police headquarters in the north Iraq city left 30 people dead, officials said.
The security and medical officials said that at around midnight a gunman opened fire on four men sitting in a caravan adjacent to a neighborhood electricity generator, killing all of them.
Districts nationwide are serviced by private generators which fill the large power gap, as most Iraqis get fewer than 10 hours of electricity per day.
Typically, the generator operator and some of his friends stay in a caravan next to the machine to ensure it operates constantly.
The violence comes as Iraq grapples with a political crisis pitting premier Maliki against his government partners amid weeks of protests calling for him to resign.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but local security officials blame Al-Qaeda’s front group in Iraq, which often targets security forces and officials in a bid to
Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city 240 kilometers north of Baghdad, lies at the heart of a swathe of disputed territory claimed by both the central government and Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdish region.
The unresolved row is persistently cited by diplomats and officials as the biggest threat to Iraq’s long-term stability.
The violence was the latest in a spike in unrest that saw 246 people killed last month, the most since September, according to an AFP tally.
from AL ARABIYA
Last Updated: Mon Feb 04, 2013 15:24 pm (KSA) 12:24 pm (GMT)
Sunday, February 3, 2013
French Jets Attack Militant Positions in Mali
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| map by Evan Centanni (www.polgeonow.com) |
The French news agency quotes a military official saying 30 jets blasted militant training and logistics centers Sunday in an overnight raid.
On Saturday, Hollande told Malians that terrorism has been repelled and chased out, but not yet conquered.
In an appearance with Mali's interim president, Dioncounda Traore, the French leader said France had a duty to intervene and help Malian forces push Islamist militants from their strongholds in the north.
"City after city, village after village, the Malian and French armies, helped by the West African countries, give Mali its integrity and strength back," Hollande said.
He told a cheering crowd in the capital, Bamako, that French forces were fighting so that Malians in the former French colony could live in peace and have democracy.
Traore thanked Hollande for France's intervention and warned Malians against seeking vengeance for militant attacks.
Hollande's one-day tour of Mali came three weeks after the start of France's intervention.
The president, accompanied by the defense and finance ministers, visited Sevare and the ancient town of Timbuktu before heading to Bamako.
In Timbuktu, dancers and drummers greeted the French president, while Malians chanted, "Vive La France." He toured an ancient mosque and a library that had both been targeted by militants.
Hollande told reporters the Malian army had played a key role in liberating towns in the region.
"All the cities which were freed, were freed by the Malian army, supported by the French army," Hollande said. "It was always the Malians who entered first. Kidal, they needed to go to the airport and there were very special circumstances, then there were sand storms, so that has stopped the operation but it will continue, because our will and the one expressed by Mali is that France puts itself at the service of Mali within the framework of the United Nations and it is one of the complete return of territorial integrity in Mali."
Hollande is pushing for African forces to take over for French troops that have been battling insurgents.
The Tuareg rebel group MNLA has been fighting for a Tuareg homeland. It seized part of northern Mali last year and later joined forces with Islamic militants when the Malian government collapsed. The Tuaregs later split with the militants when they imposed conservative Islamic law in the north, and the MNLA now says it backs the French military operation in Mali.
from VOA NEWS
February 03, 2013
Feb. 03., 2013. - ISAF Joint Command Operational Update
The detained Taliban IED attack coordinator planned and executed IED attacks throughout Khanabad district. He is believed to have conducted attacks against Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan officials as well as Afghan and coalition forces.
During the operation, the security force also seized IED-making materials.
In other International Security Assistance Force news throughout Afghanistan:
North
An Afghan and coalition force detained two insurgents during a security operation in search of a Taliban senior leader in Baghlan-e Jadid district, Baghlan province, Feb. 3. The Taliban senior leader is alleged to command a cell of 25 Taliban fighters in Baghlan-e Jadid district and oversees IED operations.
East
An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Haqqani leader in Khost district, Khost province, Feb. 1. The detained Haqqani leader is an IED expert and believed responsible for IED facilitation and attacks in Khost district. He is accused of coordinating the acquisition and transfer of homemade explosives, weapons and IEDs for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces. The security force also detained one suspected insurgent and seized multiple assault rifles as a result of the operation.
Feb. 03., 2013. - RC-East operational update
Wardak Province
Afghan National Security Forces found and safely cleared an IED in Sayed Abad district.
Khowst Province
Afghan National Security Forces found and safely cleared an IED in Gurbuz district.
Nangarhar Province
Afghan National Security Forces found and safely cleared an IED in Surkh Rod district.
Operations in RC-East are ongoing.
At least 30 killed, 70 injured in attacks on Iraqi police station
Militants had apparently sought to take control of the compound, but were unsuccessful, Brigadier General Natah Mohammed Sabr, the head of the city's emergency services department said.
The attackers struck at morning rush hour in the city centre, Sabr said, with the militants armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests looking to force their way into the police headquarters in the chaotic aftermath of the car bombing.
In addition to the casualties, the attack caused massive damage to nearby buildings, Sabr said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's coordinated attack, but Sunni militants including Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq frequently target security forces and government land marks in a bid to destabilize the country.
Kirkuk lies at the heart of a swathe of disputed territory claimed by both the central government and Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region.
The unresolved row is persistently cited by diplomats and officials as the biggest threat to Iraq's long-term stability.
Militants often exploit a lack of coordination between the two sides' security forces and launch deadly attacks in the city, which remains one of the most violent in Iraq, and also in nearby towns.
The deadly violence shattered a relative calm in Iraq in recent days.
Baghdad has been grappling with a political crisis that has pitted Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against his former government partners amid weeks of protests calling for him to resign.
from AL ARABIYA
Sunday, 03 February 2013
more photos from XINHUA (SOME GRAPHIC WARNING): http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2013-02/03/c_132148087.htm
R.I.P. - Chris Kyle
Chris Kyle, 38, and another man were found dead at Rough Creek's shooting range between 3:30 and 4 p.m. Saturday, according to Sheriff Tommy Bryant.
Eddie Ray Routh, an Iraqi war veteran, was arrested hours later after a manhunt led authorities to Lancaster where Routh was taken into custody just before 9 p.m. Saturday.
Routh, 25, is expected to be charged with capital murder.
Investigators had not released the name of the second victim at press time, but reports indicate he may have been Routh's neighbor.
Bryant said the three men were at the shooting range Saturday when Routh shot the victims at point-blank range before fleeing in Kyle's truck .
Kyle was a former Navy SEAL who served four tours of duty in Iraq, where he was given the nickname "The Devil of Ramadi" by insurgents.
In 2008, he made his longest successful shot after he spotted an insurgent with a rocket launcher near a U.S. Army convoy at a range of 2,100 yards (1.2 miles).
Kyle was recently honored by the Tarleton Alumni Association as the Outstanding Young Alumnus for 2013.
"Our hearts go out to Chris’ family and friends at this tragic moment,” Tarleton State University President, Dr. Dominic Dottavio, said. “We are proud of his exemplary service to our nation and are deeply saddened to hear the news of this tragic event.”
Kyle leaves behind a wife, Taya, and two children.
from Your Stephenville TX.com
by Sara Vanden Berge
Posted: Saturday, February 2, 2013 8:40 pm | Updated: 10:22 pm, Sat Feb 2, 2013.
---
February 2, 2013
Chris Kyle, Another Brother Lost
IED blast kills two, injures three soldiers in Orakzai
ORAKZAI AGENCY: Two security personnel, including an officer,
were killed while three others sustained injuries in an IED blast in
Ghunda Mela village of upper Orakzai Agency, officials said.The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) has confirmed that two soldiers “embraced martyrdom” while three others were injured in the blast during search of an old compound.
Tehsildar Orakzai Agency Nauman Khan has also confirmed that the security forces convoy was hit by a discarded improvised explosive device when they were searching an abandoned compound.
The deceased were later identified as Captain Hasnat Ali and Naib Subedar Arif Khan.
Earlier, suicide bombers had attacked a military checkpost in Lakki Marwat early on Saturday, killing 13 soldiers and 11 civilians.
Banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) later claimed responsibility of the attack.
from DAWN
Washington Time
Kabul Time
London Time
