Daily Terrorist Round-Up 6/12/05

6/12/05

[Straight Vermonter]

U.S. soldier, 7 militants die in Afghanistan battle

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A U.S. soldier was killed and three others wounded when insurgents ambushed a patrol Friday in eastern Afghanistan -- the third deadly attack on U.S. forces in the border region in a week.

Seven militants were killed in the fighting set off by the ambush of U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces in Paktika province, a U.S. military statement said. The militants fled after the fighting, and U.S. forces deployed an attack aircraft in pursuit.

Fighting in Paktika has killed five U.S. troops in the past week. The province is next to Pakistan's border, and militants based in tribal regions on the other side of the mountainous frontier often cross into Afghanistan to launch attacks. Seventeen suspected Taliban militants were reported captured in the area Monday.

Two U.S. soldiers wounded in Friday's attack were taken to a nearby base for treatment, while the third was treated and returned to duty, the military statement said.

"Our patrols of coalition and Afghan forces are relentless in the pursuit of the enemy," Army Brig. Gen. Jack Sterling was quoted as saying of Friday's clash. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of our soldier and will honor him by continuing to take the fight to the enemy."

"The enemy may still be powerful at times, but not nearly as powerful as the combined efforts of Afghan and coalition forces when fighting alongside each other," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara told The Associated Press by telephone.

The death brought to 149 the number of U.S. military personnel killed in and around Afghanistan since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001.

Even though U.S. military commanders are optimistic about progress toward making Afghanistan secure, bombings, shootings and other violence have increased sharply since the winter's snow melted in mountain passes used by insurgents.

Security forces, however, have hit back hard, killing more than 200 suspected militants since March, U.S. and Afghan officials say.

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Coalition foils 8 attacks in Iraq, detains 116 terrorists

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Army News Service, June 6, 2005) – Coalition forces foiled eight planned attacks in Iraq this weekend, detained 116 suspected terrorists and killed three others even though additional insurgent attacks left six Iraqi civilians dead and one civilian injured.

One Iraqi civilian was killed and another was injured today in northern Mosul when terrorists fired mortar rounds at a neighborhood police station. The injured civilian was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Five Iraqi civilians were killed, including two women and two children, during a separate mortar attack conducted by terrorists in Tal Afar June 5.

Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Forces killed two terrorists, seized a large weapons cache and detained six suspected terrorists during operations in Mosul June 5.

Another terrorist was killed in Baghdad June 4 when a Task Force Baghdad sniper team observed several men wearing black ski masks place a bomb near a major highway. A sniper fired, hitting and killing one of the terrorists. The team found a 250-pound bomb upon searching the site.

Task Force Baghdad Soldiers took two suspected terrorists into custody for questioning June 4 following a checkpoint incident in which an approaching car refused to stop.

U.S. Soldiers in Baghdad identified and safely detonated five explosive devices on June 4.

“These terrorists use a variety of tactics, techniques and procedures to kill innocent people,” said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Task Force Baghdad spokesperson. “A lot of lives were saved today by Soldiers finding and disabling these bombs before terrorists could use them.”

Raids conducted in south Baghdad June 4 by the Iraqi Army and coalition U.S. Soldiers yielded 108 suspected terrorists, anti-Iraqi propaganda, fake passports and more than 50 weapons. The suspected terrorists are being held for further questioning.

“The Iraqi Army has proven once again that they are capable of executing missions to find and destroy terrorists,” said Maj. Web Wright, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division public affairs officer. “The number of tips received by the local populous shows that they have grown tired of terrorists living in their neighborhoods.”

(Editor's note: Information from a number of news releases was combined by ARNEWS correspondent Carrie David for this article.)

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US air strikes kill 40 insurgents

AP - US fighter planes have launched air strikes on an Iraqi town near the Syrian border, killing about 40 insurgents, the military said.

Seven precision-guided missiles were fired on Saturday at heavily armed insurgents who were stopping and searching civilian cars at gunpoint near Karabilah, close to the volatile town of Qaim, the US Marines said in a statement.

The insurgents were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, medium machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and had "set up a barricade on a main road to the city and were threatening Iraqi civilians", the military said.

US warplanes backed by helicopters launched air strikes that began at 11.40am and ended at 4pm "once all the targets were destroyed", the military said. About 40 insurgents were killed and there were no marine casualties.

"The coalition aircraft and fighter jets and attack helicopters from the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing attacked the insurgent compound and surrounding area targeting the armed men," the statement said. "There are no reports of civilian casualties or collateral damage."

It was unclear if there were any foreign fighters among the slain insurgents. The region is known as a haven for Islamic extremists crossing in and out of Iraq across the Syrian border to attack US and Iraqi security forces. The US military launched two major counterinsurgent offensives in the area last month that killed an estimated 140 militants.

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OPERATIONS IN MOSUL NET TERROR SUSPECTS

MOSUL, Iraq – Multi-National Force Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment detained four suspected terrorists during separate raids in western Mosul June 10.

Suspects are in custody with no MNF injuries reported.

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Cavalry, Iraqi platoons raid captures suspected insurgents

It was 2 a.m. - roughly 12 U.S. Soldiers and about 20 Iraqi Soldiers jump out of their vehicles. With their M-4 carbines and AK-47's at the ready, the dismount of determined Soldiers follows a dirt drive way illuminated by dim moonlight to an unlit house.

Several chemlights are thrown at the front door " the Soldiers quietly organize a tight line before several blasts of a shotgun throws the front door open.

"COME OUT, HANDS IN THE AIR, GET DOWN," echoes from the voices of multiple Soldiers though the empty rooms, before the team surrounds a middle-aged man, clutched in the arms of his family, not ready to accept the responsibility for his actions.

In response to growing Improvised Explosive Devices being located and detonated on Main Supply Route Tampa, American and Iraqi Soldiers lead an early morning raid May 31 with the assistance of multiple tips.

"[Our Troop] was going after an IED cell operating in the Muhatta area, located at the intersection of MSR Tampa and Alternate Supply Route Amy," Capt. Joel Jackson, commander of Troop A, said.

Soldiers of Troop A, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and Soldiers of B Company, 203rd Iraqi Army Battalion, 3rd Brigade stormed three houses outside Logistical Support Area Anaconda with the hopes of securing high value targets suspected of being responsible to MSR Tampa's IED problem.

"We went out looking for 10 guys," Jackson said. "We got seven of those guys and got four more that were collaborating with the guys we caught."

Each house, which took about 45 minutes to an hour and a shotgun burst to the door to get in, turned up at least one suspect each as well as various contraband including multiple AK-47 magazines, excessive amounts of telephone wire, Anti-Iraqi Forces documents and photographs, and even a U.S. issued M-9 9mm Beretta Pistol.

"We take [all the evidence] in when we bring it to brigade, and label it according to where we found it," Jackson said. "The evidence follows the suspect (through the interrogation process)."

Intelligence which led to the raid was provided from various sources.

"You hope to have a multi-source intelligence, which is intelligence gathered from two or more people," 1st Lt. Jeffrey Sacks, 2nd platoon leader said. "Then the battalion puts together all the intelligence on the subject, and a platoon is giving the responsibility to get the subject."

The raid itself has an effect on the Soldiers involved as well.

Some times [the Soldiers] take a beating," Sacks said. "The raid we just did, we had three targets and it's like a sport you have to keep that adrenaline pumping, and keep the blood flowing, but it's rewarding in the end when you catch the guys you were looking for."

"Your heart rate goes up because you don't know what's in that house or building," Sacks added. "When you first step in it, they may have booby trapped the rooms, their yard or anything, it's a feeling that I won't ever forget."

By Spc. Jerome Bishop
Staff writer

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U.S. army trains Africans to fight desert militants
By Nick Tattersall

DAKAR – One thousand military experts from the United States are training soldiers from nine West African countries as U.S. fears grow that an Algerian militant group allied to al Qaeda is broadening its base in the region. The exercise, meant to help stem weapons smuggling and stop militants finding havens around the Sahara desert, began this week in Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria and Mauritania, where an Islamic fundamentalist group killed 15 soldiers last week.

A posting on an Islamist Web site said Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) carried out the dawn raid on a remote Mauritanian military post, the first time the GSPC has claimed responsibility for an attack outside its homeland.

The attack near Mauritania's border with Mali and Algeria surprised some U.S. military observers who believed the GSPC had been largely contained and raised fears the group was increasingly ready to strike out into new territory.

'Now they've added Mauritania to their list, so this is another notch on the belt. They're broadening their base... they've got more bona fide as a trans-national organisation,' said a U.S. military official who closely follows the region.

'We've stood up and said we're going to fix the problem and they've stood up and said we are the problem. So it's going to be an interesting race to see who comes out on top.'

The U.S. European Command (EUCOM) is running the joint military training, known as Operation Flintlock and planned before the Mauritania attack. It aims to help countries plan and execute their own counter-terrorism strategies as well as peacekeeping, humanitarian and disaster relief operations.

Around 3,000 African soldiers will be schooled in basics such as marksmanship, small-unit tactics and land navigation as well as airborne operations and human rights law.

OIL AND COUNTER-TERRORISM

The Sahara is infamous for banditry but the world's top energy consumer also fears Islamic extremists, civil war, political anarchy and piracy near the Gulf of Guinea, which it hopes will supply a quarter of its oil imports within a decade.

As part of Flintlock, Senegal will host an exercise with soldiers from nine countries, including Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia, in which they will jointly solve a terrorism scenario.

'In the past the focus has been within their own borders. Now the focus is much more regional,' EUCOM's Major Holly Silkman said on Friday.

Flintlock aims to build on training by U.S. Marines and Special Forces last year in the deserts of Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania, part of a Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorist Initiative (TSCTI) expected to cost the United States $100 million over five years.

Some U.S. officials privately acknowledge the main concern is protecting Nigeria, the continent's biggest oil producer, the region's only OPEC member and the main destination for U.S. investment in sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa.

But critics say Washington's increasingly high-profile involvement in security in West Africa risks fuelling a growing resentment of U.S. foreign policy and radicalising some in a region largely known for moderate forms of Islam.

Think-tank International Crisis Group has cautioned that a military policy which offers no alternative livelihoods to already marginalised nomadic populations in countries around the Sahara risks exacerbating the threat Washington wants to curb.

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Two suspected Taliban arrested in Kandahar

KABUL: Defence Ministry officials claimed arresting two suspected Taliban during a crackdown in the southern Kandahar province.

Defence Ministry spokesman Zahid Murad said one of the suspects was arrested in Pelko area near the house of ousted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. "BM-12 missiles were recovered from his possession," the official added.

US Special Forces are currently stationed in Mullah Omar's house, which has repeatedly been targeted by insurgents.

Government forces also captured another Taliban suspect called Mullah Abdul Razzaq on a highway between Kandahar and Arghandab district. The identity of the second detainee was not divulged, however.

Taliban are yet to say anything about the incident.

About 70 people including some high-ranking government officials were killed and wounded a week back when a suicide bomber in a police uniform blew himself up in a crowded mosque in Kandahar.

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Bandit disguised in Russian military uniform detained in Chechnya

GROZNY, June 11 (RIA Novosti) - Law enforcement officers detained a bandit from Shamil Basayev's group (Basayev is a Chechen terrorist leader), representative of the Regional Operative Headquarters of the anti-terrorist operation in the Northern Caucasus (ROH) told RIA Novosti.

"The bandit has been detained in the village of Mesker-Yurt in the Shalinsky district of Chechnya. The investigation established that the bandit, disguised as a federal soldier, killed local resident Vakhi Khasanov in September 2002," the ROH representative reported.

In addition, in July 2002, the bandit, together with other members of a group, destroyed a car with local residents on the road near the same village.

A source in the Chechen interior ministry told RIA Novosti the detainee is suspected of criminal activities against the federal forces.

For instance, he blew up a Zhiguli car with two Russian military. As a result, one soldier was killed, and the other injured.

In September 2002, the bandit blew up a UAZ vehicle with police officers. Nine operatives were injured.

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Secrecy to surround trial for terrorism
By Marian Wilkinson and Les Kennedy

The terrorist suspect Faheem Khalid Lodhi has been committed for trial after hearings marked by clashes between defence lawyers and the Federal Government over secret ASIO affidavits, suppression orders to protect national security and the dropping of a Crown witness.

Lodhi, taken to Central Local Court in Sydney yesterday amid tight security, will face trial on nine charges over planning to commit terrorist acts against Sydney's electricity grid and the defence sites Holsworthy Barracks, Victoria Barracks and HMAS Penguin naval base.

Lodhi, 35, of Punchbowl, became the subject of an intense investigation by ASIO and the federal and NSW police after he was alleged to have been a contact for a French terrorist suspect, Willy Brigitte, who flew to Sydney from Pakistan in May 2003.

The prosecution claims Lodhi met Brigitte at the airport, having written his flight number and physical description in his diary.

The two remained in touch for five months, according to police evidence, and by October Lodhi had allegedly obtained images of the electricity grid and inquired about ordering large quantities of chemicals that could be used in bombs.

ASIO did not know Brigitte was in Australia until French authorities told them in September 2003. Brigitte was deported to France in October, and soon after, according to a police statement in court, Lodhi's phone and computer were tapped.

Police had searched his office and found notes on chemicals, and he was seen dumping documents in a Sydney park.

But Lodhi's barrister, Phillip Boulten, SC, challenged a central prosecution claim that Lodhi rose to a prominent position in a Pakistan terrorist training camp run by Lashkar-e-Toiba, the group that allegedly trained Brigitte.

Prosecutors say Lodhi was a quartermaster in one of the group's camps, in Pakistan, which also trained members of the organisation behind the Bali bombings, Jemaah Islamiah. One of the Pakistan group allegedly put Brigitte in touch with Lodhi.

A Jemaah Islamiah suspect held in Singapore, Arif Naharudin, was to be a critical Crown witness backing this claim. He had alleged that Lodhi was a supervisor at the training camp.

The outgoing ASIO chief, Dennis Richardson, has provided an affidavit to the hearings about this evidence.

But Lodhi's lawyers sought to cross-examine Naharudin, who gave evidence by video link from Singapore. However, for several months, Mr Boulten said, the Government had refused to provide a document relevant to Naharudin's credibility.

Yesterday, the Crown withdrew Naharudin's evidence because of the Government's refusal to hand over the document, said the prosecutor, Richard Maidment, SC.

Lohdi sat impassively when the magistrate, Michael Price, ordered him to stand trial. Asked if he had anything to say, Lodhi replied: "No, thank you."

He remains in custody.

In the same court yesterday, Mr Price also committed a former Qantas baggage handler to stand trial.

Bilal Khazal, 35, of Lakemba, is charged with knowingly making documents likely to facilitate a terrorist act. He is alleged to have compiled a book on his computer, outlining "short and wise" rules for fighting jihad and to have dedicated it to the "martyrs of Islam".

Mr Price ordered that Khazal appear before the Supreme Court on July 1, when a trial date will be set. He is free on bail.

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Army surrounds 2 Jaish militants in JK shrine
Mukhtar Ahmad In Srinagar

Army troops on Friday afternoon surrounded a local Shrine at Wallerhama village in south Kashmir's Anantnag district after two militants entered the premises.

The militants took refuge in the shrine following a cordon and search operation in the village.

Latest reports said the two were firing at the troops, who have laid a tight siege around the Shrine.

Earlier, security forces surrounded Wallerhama on specific information about the presence of two top Jaish-e-Mohammad militants in the village.

"As the security forces launched house to house searches, the two hiding militants sneaked inside the Shrine. The troops immediately surrounded the Shrine premises and holed up militants started firing at the soldiers," said a police officer.

Senior police and security force officers are supervising the operation.

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Three militants killed in J&K

Three militants, including a self-styled commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, were killed in separate encounters in Jammu and Kashmir since last night, official sources said today.

A joint search party of BSF and army killed self-styled company commander of Hizbul Mujahideen Mohammad Ashraf alias Majid, active for the past 10 years, in an encounter at village Seer Jageer in Pulwama district this morning, the sources said.

The militant, wanted in connection with a number of militancy-related incidents, was asked to surrender but he opened fire at the security forces, who retaliated killing him. One AK rifle, three magazines and four handgrenades were recovered from the slain ultra, they said.

The sources said two militants were killed in an encounter at Trakpora in Bandipora area of Baramulla district last night.

Some arms and ammunition were recovered from the deceased, whose identity and group affiliation is being ascertained, they added.
 

[Straight Vermonter]

Ping

[DTogo]

KABUL: ...About 70 people including some high-ranking government officials were killed and wounded a week back when a suicide bomber in a police uniform blew himself up in a crowded mosque in Kandahar.

We can only hope that in the melee of the explosion, a Quran didn't end up in an open toilet. /sarc

[FreedomPoster]

Bump. Nice work, as usual, SV. I look at every one, even if I don't always post.

[Coop]

US Special Forces are currently stationed in Mullah Omar's house, which has repeatedly been targeted by insurgents.

LOL! Nothing like poking a stick in Mullah Omar's one remaining eye.

[nuconvert]

LoL