Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=47241
Troops Kill 11 Insurgents in Attack on Afghanistan Base
American Forces Press Service
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Aug. 30, 2007 – Elements of the 1st Brigade, 205th Afghan National Army Corps, along with coalition forces, repelled a direct attack on Firebase Anaconda in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province today, killing 11 of the attackers.
Insurgents attacked the base from multiple directions with 72 mm rockets, small arms and heavy machine gun fire, officials said. Coalition close-air support conducted precision air strikes, successfully destroying the enemy fighters.
This was the fourth attack on Firebase Anaconda this month. An estimated 74 insurgents were killed in the previous attacks on the base.
The recent probing attacks have reinforced credible intelligence gathered by coalition forces of a planned, large-scale attack on Firebase Anaconda, officials said.
“After several failed attempts earlier in the month to attack Firebase Anaconda, with more than 70 dead insurgents to show for their efforts, we thought the Taliban had learned their lesson,” said Army Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a Combined Joint Task Force 82 spokeswoman. “This engagement was yet another blow to the al Qaeda and Taliban extremist fighters attempting to operate in Afghanistan.”
Two coalition servicemembers were slightly wounded in the engagement. Both have returned to duty, officials said. There were no reports of civilians being injured or killed in the attack.
(From a Combined Joint Task Force 82 news release.)
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017976.php
(WASHINGTON POST)
August 30, 2007
“Bush Administration scraps plans to screen U.S. foreign aid contractors for terror ties”
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “The Bush administration has decided to sharply scale back its plan to screen U.S. foreign aid contractors around the globe for potential terrorism connections, deciding instead to begin with a pilot program involving aid recipients in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip before expanding it worldwide.
The decision, announced Tuesday at a meeting of U.S. officials and representatives of nonprofit groups, was made after lawmakers and several large aid organizations said that the global screening requirements were onerous and unwarranted. An official of the U.S. Agency for International Development had earlier promised to defer the program, which initially was to have taken effect Monday.
The global screening program, initially described in a July 17 Federal Register notice, would have required that all nongovernmental organizations seeking funds from the agency provide detailed information about key personnel, including phone numbers, birth dates and e-mail addresses.
That information was to have been reviewed by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, to ensure that there were no connections with individuals or groups associated with terrorism or threats to national security. It would have affected thousands of individuals in nonprofit groups, charities, religious organizations, colleges, universities and private corporations.”