Free Republic

PARKLAND, Wash. - Four police officers were shot and killed in a Sunday morning ambush at a Parkland-area coffee shop, officials said. Pierce County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ed Troyer called the ambush "a targeted attack." Officials at the scene said two gunmen burst into the Forza Coffee Co. outlet at 11401 Steele St. South, shot the four uniformed officers as they were working on their laptop computers, then fled the scene. Other customers were inside the coffee shop at the time of the attack, but none of them were shot or injured. A $10,000 reward is being offered for any...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24, 2009 – Combined Afghan and international forces killed an enemy militant and detained numerous suspects in recent operations in Afghanistan, military officials reported. In Kandahar province today, a combined force detained several suspected militants, including a known Taliban facilitator responsible for the financial and logistical support of militant elements in the area. Tips from intelligence sources led the force to search compounds near the village of Bahay Dehe Sufla, southwest of Kandahar City. The suspects were detained without resistance, and one confirmed his identity as the Taliban facilitator. In another operation today, a combined force detained a...

KABUL, Nov. 20, 2009 – Afghan and international forces in Afghanistan killed an enemy militant and detained several terrorism suspects today, military officials reported. A combined Afghan-international security force killed an enemy militant in Takhar province while pursuing a facilitator for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan terrorist organization who is responsible for financing militant activities and transporting foreign fighters into the region. The force searched a compound in the rural Bangi district east of Kunduz City. During the search, the enemy militant displayed hostile intent and was killed. The search was completed without further incident. There has been an increased...

KABUL, Nov. 19, 2009 – Afghan and international forces killed several militants and detained terrorism suspects in two Afghanistan provinces yesterday, military officials reported. A combined Afghan-international force detained several suspected militants in northern Kandahar province while pursuing a senior Taliban commander. The force targeted two vehicles near the village of Sahabey in the province’s Ghorak district after intelligence indicated militant activity. One of the vehicles contained a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and several rounds, as well as a machine gun and ammunition. The vehicles’ occupants were detained for further questioning, and the force safely destroyed the RPG launcher and other...

"Why would someone do this to her?"

KABUL, Nov. 17, 2009 – Afghan and international forces worked together to kill or detain numerous enemy fighters and terrorism suspects in operations over the last two days, military officials reported. A combined Afghan and international security force killed several enemy militants, including a sought-after Taliban district commander, and detained several suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Wardak province early today. The force searched a compound near the village of Mayshin Kala in the province’s Sayed Abad district where intelligence indicated militant activity. Upon entering the compound courtyard, the force came under attack and returned fire, killing several enemy militants. During the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2009 – Combined Afghan and international forces killed or detained suspected militants in Afghanistan’s Wardak and Khowst provinces yesterday, and officials are investigating whether an International Security Assistance Force rocket attack caused civilian casualties, military officials reported. A combined force targeted a compound near the village of Babur Kheyl in Wardak’s Sayed Abad district after intelligence indicated militant activity there. After entering the compound, the force received hostile fire and returned fire, killing the militants. The patrol searched the compound and detained a group of suspected militants. No civilians were harmed during the operation, officials said. In...

MEXICO CITY – A news reporter who wrote about violent drug crimes has been strangled in the northern Mexican state of Durango, authorities said Tuesday. El Tiempo de Durango journalist Jose Bladimir Antuna was kidnapped Monday morning, said Ruben Lopez, spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office. Authorities found his body that night in a vacant lot in the state capital, about 400 miles southwest of Laredo, Texas. State authorities are investigating the murder. Lopez would not specify whether they suspected connections with organized crime. But Antuna had told his colleagues at the newspaper that he had received multiple telephone...

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's army pushed deeper into a Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border Tuesday, claiming to have killed 42 militants in the latest stage of an offensive against extremists blamed for relentless attacks in recent weeks . In the capital, gunmen attacked a high-ranking Pakistani army officer in the second targeted shooting against top military brass in less than a week, part of a wave of violence sweeping the country in apparent retaliation for the 11-day long offensive in South Waziristan. The army officer, and his mother who was traveling with him, escaped unhurt from the assault in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2009 – Afghan and NATO forces have removed dozens of insurgents from fighting in Afghanistan in recent days, including a long-sought-after Taliban commander, military officials reported. Combined Afghan and International Security Assistance Force units killed at least two dozen insurgents during fighting in southern and eastern Afghanistan and detained numerous others. In operations yesterday: -- A combined force killed a dozen enemy militants in Kandahar province in an operation to interdict a Taliban commander and his unit believed to be responsible for attacks in the Arghandab district west of Kandahar City. The force coordinated an air strike...

The two car bombs were detonated near Baghdad's provincial government building and Iraq's Justice Ministry.

KABUL, Oct. 23, 2009 – A combined Afghan and international security force killed enemy fighters and wounded another yesterday after forcefully entering and searching a series of compounds in Afghanistan’s Wardak province. The compounds were known to be used by a Taliban commander and his group believed to be responsible for several attacks in the area. The combined force initially searched a building in the province’s Chaki Wardak district without incident. But after observing enemy activity in a nearby compound, the force pursued those suspected militants. The militants fired on the combined force as it approached, and the force returned...

KABUL, Oct. 20, 2009 – Afghan and international security forces killed militants, detained several suspects and seized weapons today in Afghanistan, military officials reported. A combined force killed enemy militants and detained suspected militants after searching two compounds known to be used by a Taliban commander and his element in Wardak province’s Jaghatu district. The suspects are believed to be responsible for guiding and directing other militant elements to conduct attacks in the area. During the search, enemy militants displayed hostile intent outside of the compounds. The force used precision aerial fire to kill several armed militants posing a threat...

KABUL, Oct. 16, 2009 – Afghan and international forces killed militants today in a clash in which a woman and child died in the crossfire, killed several more enemy fighters in a separate operation, and arrested more than a dozen militants yesterday who had set up an illegal checkpoint, military officials reported. Militants attacked Afghan National Police and an international security force working to interdict suspected militants believed responsible for attacks in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province today. The combined force returned fire, killing two of the attackers, officials said, and found a woman and school-aged girl who apparently were accidently killed...

The Taliban in Pakistan have released a video confirming that their former leader Baitullah Mehsud is dead. A video received by the BBC shows the body of the former head of Pakistan's largest Taliban group lying in a room. It is not clear where it was taken. Mr Mehsud was killed on 6 August in the tribal region of South Waziristan in a missile attack by a suspected US drone.

The brother of Pakistan's new Taliban leader has been killed in a clash with security forces in the north-west of the country, local officials say. Kalimullah Mehsud was killed in battle on Monday after troops responded to a Taliban rocket attack on a military base in North Waziristan. Tribal sources confirmed his death. He has since been buried in his village.

Da Joooos in da sky catch three members of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket team attempting to fire a qassam at southern Israel...hilarity ensues.... Note: This took place on Friday according to the IDF.

An Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip on Friday killed three Palestinian fighters, medical workers and the Israeli military said. According to Reuters, an Israeli military spokesman said the air force "targeted and identified hitting three terrorists on their way to launch rockets into southern Israel". The Islamic Jihad group said the fighters from its group died near the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

Practitioner Who Killed Woman in Botched Legal Abortion Faces Hearing Hyannis, MA -- Abortion practitioner Rapin Osathanondh, who has been charged with manslaughter after killing one of his patients in a botched legal abortion, faces a Friday hearing. Osathanondh did the abortion on 22-year-old Laura Smith, who died in September 2007 at his Women's Health Center abortion business. http://www.LifeNews.com/state4449.html

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia's most wanted Islamist militant was killed in a police shoot-out in Central Java, police said on Thursday, lifting a major security threat ahead of a planned visit by U.S. President Barack Obama. Malaysian-born Noordin Mohammad Top, who set up a violent splinter group of regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah, was widely considered the mastermind of the bomb attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta in July, as well as other attacks in Bali and in Jakarta which killed scores of Westerners and Indonesians. National police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri announced Top's death at a news conference,...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Charleston Mayor Danny Jones revealed at a Sunday evening news conference that "there's every reason to believe" friendly fire killed Patrolman Jerry Jones. Patrolman Jones was shot and killed during a chase that ended in the Quick area of Kanawha County after 1 a.m. Sunday morning. Mayor Danny Jones says police can't prove it at this point, but they believe the shot that killed Patrolman Jones came from one of the city's officers. Mayor Jones says they are not sure which gun the bullet came from, but police believe the suspect during the chase was "armed...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A top Al-Qaeda operative who figures high on an FBI list of wanted terror suspects was killed in a US military raid in southern Somalia Monday, a US official told AFP. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, named the dead man as Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan wanted for questioning for 2002 attacks in Mombasa on a hotel and an Israeli airliner. ABC news and Fox News, quoting US officials, said Nabhan was killed when at least one US helicopter fired on a convoy carrying suspected Al-Qaeda targets in southern Somalia earlier Monday. An American...

THE Taliban chief who threatened to slaughter Prince Harry has been assassinated by special forces soldiers. Australian marksmen "took out" Mullah Abdul Karim in a secret mission sanctioned by top brass. It was part of a concerted campaign designed to rid lawless Oruzgan province of hardcore militants. Similar covert operations are believed to have wiped out more than half a dozen senior Taliban leaders. Karim gained notoriety last year by describing Harry, then serving with the Household Cavalry in southern Helmand, as an "important chicken". Threatening to kill the prince - third in line to the throne - he added:...

Apache's 30mm turns four jihadis into a fine red Allah-mist. Note: Sound on for added effect.

Super-high quality vid of Apache vaporizing 5 jihadis. Fun starts around the 1:20 mark. Note: Flying-jihadi on the first strike, watch the guy on the left (1:27 mark).

Taliban bunker complex completely destroyed, with amazing flying-jihadi goodness...

Two commanders of the Pakistani Taliban acknowledged Tuesday that the militants' top leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a U.S. missile strike. It was the first time the militants acknowledged Mehsud's death, first reported shortly after the CIA missile strike Aug. 5 near the Afghan border. ... "He was wounded. He got the wounds in a drone strike and he was martyred two days ago," Hakimullah Mehsud said. Rehman later repeated the same statement.

The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, is dead, two of his senior commanders have told the BBC. It is the first time that the militant group has acknowledged his death.The commanders, Hakimullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman, said that he had died of injuries sustained in a US missile strike earlier this month.Hakimullah has been named as successor to Baitullah Mehsud, who was Pakistan's most feared militant, accused of scores of suicide bombings and other attacks. Hakimullah Mehsud, who is believed to be in his late 20s, said Baitullah Mehsud had been critically wounded by the missile strike but...

A Tampa police officer was shot and killed on Nebraska Avenue late Wednesday. His name was not available at press time, but police said he was a veteran officer. A man in his 20s was taken into custody.

GAZA CITY (AFP) – A radical sheikh was among 24 people killed and 130 wounded after Hamas police stormed a Gaza mosque when he declared an Islamic emirate in the Palestinian enclave, medics said on Saturday. The shooting erupted on Friday afternoon following weekly prayers in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and continued until dawn on Saturday. "Clashes... between Hamas and an extremist group in the southern Gaza Strip left 24 people dead and at least 130 wounded," a spokesman for the Palestinian emergency services told AFP. Four of the wounded were considered to be "clinically dead" and many more...

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- An appeals court commuted the death sentences for four men convicted of killing an American diplomat and his Sudanese driver after the driver's family decided to pardon the murderers, a news agency reported Thursday. Sudanese law stipulates that if a victim's family chooses to pardon the murderer, the person cannot be sentenced to death and the prison term cannot exceed 10 years. The case will be referred back to the initial court for a new sentence, said the Sudan Media Center.

A Scottish soldier has been praised for making the longest recorded kill in Afghanistan after shooting a top Taliban fighter from almost a mile away. Corporal Christopher Reynolds took out the Afghan drug lord during some of the hardest fighting of the war so far. The 25-year-old, of 3 Scots, The Black Watch, kept watch on a shop rooftop for three days to eliminate the target. But he admitted the top-level Taliban fighter – known as Musa – was so far away it took him a couple of attempts to get the aim right.

SOUTH WAZIRISTAN: Hakimullah Mehsud and another Taliban leader Wali-ur-Rehman have been killed in an armed clash erupted during the Tehreek’s Shura meeting. At the meeting Hakimullah Mehsud was appointed as TTP Chief.

If the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who is thought to have been killed during the Aug. 5 airstrike in South Waziristan, is confirmed, his name will top of the list of senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed since the US began launching airstrikes into Pakistan's tribal areas in 2004. Baitullah would be the first tier one target (senior most al Qaeda and Taliban commanders) killed since the Jan. 1, 2009, airstrike that killed Osama al Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Al Kini was al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan, and Swedan was...

Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who led a violent campaign of suicide attacks and assassinations against the Pakistani government, has been killed in a US missile strike, a Taliban commander and aide to Mehsud said Friday. ‘I confirm that Baitullah Mehsud and his wife died in the American missile attack in South Waziristan,’ Kafayatullah told The Associated Press by telephone. He would not give any further details. Earlier on Friday, three Pakistani intelligence officials said the militant commander had been killed in the missile strike and his body had been buried

There is a strong likelihood that Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a missile attack two days ago, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Reuters. ‘We suspect he was killed in the missile strike,’ Malik said on Friday. ‘We have some information, but we don't have material evidence to confirm it.’ A senior Pakistani security official said that aside from Mehsud's wife, one of Mehsud's brothers and seven of his bodyguards perished in the attack. The official said intelligence services were trying to discover the identity of another victim, and there was a good...

Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud may have been killed in a U.S. drone attack, a U.S. official said Friday. "There's reason to believe Mehsud may be dead, but there's no confirmation at this time," the official said. Mehsud's second wife was killed early Wednesday in a suspected U.S. drone attack, according to intelligence sources and relatives. The unmanned aerial vehicle targeted the home of Mehsud's father-in-law, Mulvi Ikram ud Din, and dropped two missiles on the residence in northwestern Pakistan, an intelligence official said. Mehsud's second wife was one of two people killed in the strike, according to the sources....

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – There is a strong likelihood that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a missile attack two days ago, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Reuters. "We suspect he was killed in the missile strike," Malik said on Friday. "We have some information, but we don't have material evidence to confirm it." The United States has placed a $5 million reward on the head of Mehsud, an ally of al Qaeda widely regarded in Pakistan as Public Enemy No. 1. A U.S. defense official, speaking anonymously in Washington, said he...

A young Iranian soldier, arrested late last week for allegedly stealing weapons for opposition groups, was killed in custody and his body returned to his family on Saturday, sources in Teheran said. The sources said the bodies of several dissidents, arrested in the course of anti-regime protests in Iran in recent weeks and evidently killed in detention, had also been returned to their families in the past few days. Several of the bodies bore signs of beatings, the sources said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. service member was killed as the deadliest month for foreign troops in the Afghanistan war drew to a close, the U.S. military said on Friday, with commanders vowing to continue the fight despite the toll. The death in southern Afghanistan brought to 40 the number of U.S. troops killed in July, by far the heaviest monthly toll in the 8-year-old war. The worst previous month for U.S. forces was in September 2008, when 26 were killed.

A Gaza man is being held on suspicion he bludgeoned his daughter with an iron chain, cracking her skull in a particularly brutal family "honor killing," two human rights groups said Wednesday, citing police and forensics reports. The groups' reports said that the assault was triggered by Jawdat Najjar's discovery that his daughter Fadia - a 27-year-old divorced mother of five - owned a cell phone. He suspected she used it to speak to a man outside the family, according to the groups' reports.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others say they had their fingernails ripped off or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls. The accounts of prison abuse in Iran’s postelection crackdown — relayed by relatives and on opposition Web sites — have set off growing outrage among Iranians, including some prominent conservatives.

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2009 – Afghan and international forces killed several enemy fighters, detained nine suspects and destroyed a weapons stockpile in recent operations in Afghanistan’s Ghazni, Khost and Kandahar provinces, military officials reported. Acting on intelligence that indicated militant activity, a combined force searched a compound last night in the Ghazni village of Jahangir Kalay. The compound was known to be used by a Taliban fighter responsible for supplying weapons and ammunition to local militants for attacks against Afghan and international security forces. During the search, militants engaged the force, and the force returned fire, killing several enemy fighters....

Per Fox News

U.S. officials believe Usama bin Laden's son, Saad bin Laden, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan. Sources confirmed to FOX News late Wednesday that officials believe the younger bin Laden was killed by hellfire missiles from a U.S. Predator drone strike earlier this year. The death was first reported by National Public Radio. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told NPR that Saad bin Laden reportedly traveled to Pakistan last year after spending several years under house arrest in Iran.

WASHINGTON, July 22, 2009 – Afghan and coalition forces killed several enemy fighters, detained one other and destroyed weapons caches in operations in Afghanistan over the past two days, military officials reported. A joint Afghan and coalition force killed enemy fighters and detained a suspect on a Taliban compound in central Helmand province yesterday. The force was pursuing a senior Taliban commander believed responsible for the recruitment of bomb-making technicians and the transfer of weapons and bomb-making materials into the region. The combined force searched a compound near the village of Heyderabad after intelligence indicated militant activity there. The force...

The blog Revolutionary Road, a useful source of information throughout the post-election crisis, has posted a list of names of more than 60 people killed or missing and more than 300 detained since 12 June: Killed by Government Forces:

A SENIOR Taliban insurgent commander has been killed in an operation led by Afghan National Security Forces and supported by Australian special forces troops. Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant General Mark Evans said with the phase of that operation now complete it could be revealed that Mullah Amanullah Akhund was killed after insurgents opened fire on a combined Australian and Afghan patrol. He said patrol members returned fire, killing Akhund and two others. Lieutenant General Evans said Akhund was known to have made and placed road-side bombs in Oruzgan province, in southern Afghanistan.

The mother of a 20-year-old Somali man who went missing from Minneapolis says her son has been killed in Somalia. Abayte Ahmed (ah-BYE'-tee ah-med) says through an interpreter that she and her husband have identified their son, Jamal Bana (BAH'-nuh), in a photo showing a dead body in Somalia. Bana's father saw the photo Saturday morning during his daily checks of news reports on the fighting in Somalia. The family has been looking for signs of their son since he disappeared last November. After seeing the photo, Ahmed says she and her husband spoke by phone to someone in Somalia...

A day before New York Rep. Peter King called Michael Jackson a “pervert” unworthy of nonstop media coverage, the aunt of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan on the same day Jackson died asked why her nephew's death went virtually unnoticed while the King of Pop got memorial shrines across the country. "Mr. Jackson received days of wall-to-wall coverage in the media," Martha Gillis wrote to the Washington Post. "Where was the coverage of my nephew or the other soldiers who died that week?" Gillis' nephew, Lt. Brian Bradshaw, 24, died in Kheyl, Afganistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised...