In Afghanistan, 14 US soldiers were killed and 16 wounded in a single day, 25.10.09. As promised by Dr Al-Zawahiri, Obama, the house Negro, must expect body bags while expanding G.W. Bush’s anti Islamic crusade. In fact, no-one expected a change from Obama while keeping Robert Gates in the Pentagon, appointing Rahm Emanuel, an Israeli Reserve Army Officer, as his chief of staff and endorsing the appointment of anti-Islam Rasmussen as NATO Secretary -General. As a result, it is natural to expect more violence in response to increased USraeli hostilities; as Muslims started to actively lend a hand to the on-going resistance.
Many people including the US ambassador have felt the shock and heard the noise that shook Baghdad and the US-established Green Zone; as the Iraqis knew how to pack them big and loud. At 10.30 am of 25.10.09, huge explosions damaged the Justice ministry and the seat of Baghdad administration killing at least 25 council members. Even the bathrooms of the newly-built US embassy started to leak flooding with sewage a number of offices.
One has to sympathize with the families of the innocent victims but not with the corrupt city officials, judges or the US 'advisors' and mercenaries guarding the premises. Most Iraqis want Al-Maliki to fail as he heads a client regime that serves USraeli interests in the area. The Iraqis have already blamed the Syrians for the violence in Iraq while the Americans will soon blame Iranian, Turkish and Russian Muslims for the violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In order to reduce the hatred and tension fueling the violence, the Americans must stop supporting Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, put an end to intimidating Muslims and halting the on-going anti-Islamic crusade.
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times
Kabul - Fourteen Americans were killed Monday in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, one of which was believed to be a mid-air collision between two aircraft, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. Ten US citizens - seven soldiers and three civilians - were killed when a helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan, it said without specifying the location.
It said the cause of the accident was unknown but it was not believed to be the result of militant action.
Fourteen Afghan troops, 11 US soldiers and one US civilian were also injured.
The crash occurred after a raid on a compound where suspected militants involved in the narcotics trade were located, the ISAF said, adding that more than a dozen rebels were killed in the raid.
Mohammad Jabar, a police official in western Badghis province, identified the location as Muqur district.
He said 25 insurgents were killed in the firefight, and that a helicopter transporting troops away from the combat crashed in the province afterward. US soldiers destroyed the helicopter on the spot, Jabar added.
This year has been the deadliest for US troops and other NATO troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime.
More than 420 soldiers, including 256 US troops, have so far been killed in 2009, according to iCasualties.org, a website that tracks military casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, without counting the latest deaths.
Monday's deaths took to 18 the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan since Saturday. More than 100,000 international troops, with over 60,000 of them US forces, are currently stationed in Afghanistan.
In the southern region, two ISAF helicopters were believed to have crashed in mid-air, killing four US soldiers, the ISAF and US military said.
Hostile fire was not involved in the accident, which also injured two soldiers, the ISAF said.
Elsewhere in the country, two Afghan army soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb in southern province of Helmand on Sunday, a Defence Ministry statement said.
In other operations, 10 insurgents were killed in western Nimruz province, while a dozen other rebel fighters were killed in southern province of Kandahar, Afghan and NATO military statements said. Both incidents took place on Sunday.
Insurgent activity is on the rise, as the US administration mulls a request for 40,000 extra troops by the top NATO commander in the country, US General Stanley McChrystal.
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KABUL (Reuters) - Two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan killed 11 U.S. soldiers and three U.S. civilians on Monday, NATO-led forces said in a statement.
Neither crash was caused by hostile fire, NATO said.
This year has seen a surge of violence in Afghanistan as an increasingly fierce Taliban step up operations against U.S. and NATO forces operating in the country.
Seven U.S. service members and three U.S. civilians were killed when a NATO helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan following an operation against insurgents in which a dozen Taliban fighters were killed.
Eleven U.S. troops, 14 Afghan soldiers and a U.S. civilian were injured in the crash.
Four U.S. service members were killed and two were injured when two helicopters operated by NATO-led troops collided in mid-air in southern Afghanistan, NATO said in an earlier statement.
On Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, one U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside bomb attack and another died of wounds from an insurgent attack, NATO said in a statement on Monday.
A spokeswoman for ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, could not give any further information on the casualties or the exact location of the crashes.
(Writing by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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Bombings push US toll to worst month in Afghan war
Bombings push US toll to worst month in Afghan war
27 Oct 2009 23:49:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
(For full coverage of Afghanistan, click on [nAFPAK])
* Bloodiest month for U.S. troops in eight years of war
* Security tight ahead of Nov. 7 presidential run-off
* Speculation of Abdullah pullout continues
* Obama to meet military chiefs on Friday
* U.S. troops decision expected in "coming weeks" (Adds U.S. poll on whether to send more troops)
By Maria Golovnina
KABUL, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Eight U.S. troops were killed in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday ahead of a run-off presidential election, the NATO-led alliance said, in the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the start of the war eight years ago.
The mounting violence comes as U.S. President Barack Obama is weighing whether to send more soldiers to Afghanistan to fight a Taliban insurgency that is at its fiercest since 2001.
The foreign ministers of Russia, China and India said the world must remain engaged in Afghanistan, with Moscow seeking a greater role for regional powers to restore stability and "counter terrorism and drug trafficking."
"The timing of the statement is significant because the Americans are now reviewing their war and it's a clear signal to the U.S. that it cannot go it alone," said Uday Bhaskar, director of the National Maritime Foundation thinktank in New Delhi.
Across the border in Pakistan, which Washington sees as a crucial ally, Islamabad's troops are in the midst of a massive offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan.
The eight U.S. soldiers killed in the bomb attacks in Afghanistan on Tuesday pushed the October death toll to 53, topping the previous high of 51 deaths in August, Pentagon officials said.
The NATO-led force said several soldiers were wounded in the attacks in the south, just a day after 11 U.S. troops and three American civilians died in separate helicopter crashes.
The bombings also killed an Afghan civilian and wounded several service members. No other details were available.
Efforts to stabilize Afghanistan have been complicated by weeks of political tension over an election in August marred by widespread fraud in favor of the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, forcing a second round set for Nov. 7.
Karzai's camp said on Tuesday a run-off must take place even if his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, quits the race.
Karzai agreed last week to a run-off under severe international pressure after a U.N.-led fraud investigation annulled a large chunk of his votes in the original election.
Fueling talk he might pull out altogether, Abdullah set out a range of conditions this week. Karzai rejected the demands.
"We should not deprive the people from their right of voting and their right of citizenship," Waheed Omar, Karzai's chief campaign spokesman, told Reuters. "Whether or not the president and Abdullah take part in the run-off or not should not result in depriving the people of what they want."
PAYING TALIBAN TO DEFECT
Abdullah has given Karzai until Saturday to remove the country's top election official and meet other demands but would not say what he would do if his conditions were not met. Abdullah could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Concerns about security and a repeat of the fraud that tainted the first round have cast a shadow over the process, prompting some diplomats to suggest that a power-sharing deal between the two contenders looked more practical.
Karzai and Abdullah have so far publicly denied suggestions they could be in talks on a possible deal to share power.
The Taliban has already vowed to disrupt the Nov. 7 poll, highlighting the kind of challenges facing Western powers seeking to turn the tide in the eight-year war.
U.S. soldiers now make up two-thirds of the 100,000-strong coalition force, with Obama considering proposals to send an extra 40,000 troops or a far smaller number.
Public support in the United States for a troop increase is up from last month, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday.
The poll found 47 percent of respondents supported raising troop levels in Afghanistan, with 43 percent opposed. That was a reversal from a similar poll in September, when 51 percent opposed an increase and 44 percent supported it.
As part of his review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, Obama is set to meet on Friday with Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the heads of the military services, the White House said.
The meeting was "probably getting toward the end" of Obama's decision-making process, spokesman Robert Gibbs said, reiterating that an outcome was likely in the "coming weeks."
To reach out to moderate members of the Taliban, a defense bill Obama will sign into law on Wednesday contains a new provision that would pay militants who renounce the insurgency, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said.
The provision sets up a program in Afghanistan similar to one in Iraq in which former fighters were re-integrated into society, Levin told Reuters.
"You got 90,000 Iraqis who switched sides and are involved in protecting their hometowns against attack and violence," said Levin, the leading Senate Democrat on military matters.
The way forward for the United States and its allies is complicated by opposition to a troop build-up from some of Obama's fellow Democrats and many opinion polls showing public support for the war waning on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Afghanistan, the protracted election process and prospect of another round has disillusioned many voters, with the onset of the bitter winter adding to the challenges.
"Widespread fraud in Aug. 20 presidential and provincial council polls has deeply undermined the credibility of Hamid Karzai's government, the main beneficiary of the rigging," International Crisis Group said in a statement.
"A flawed second round will hand Taliban insurgents a significant strategic victory and erode public confidence in the electoral process and the international commitment to the country's democratic institutions." (Additional reporting by Golnar Motevalli and Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and John O'Callaghan
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Obama honors slain soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By Ross Colvin Ross Colvin – Thu Oct 29, 2:01 am ET
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware (Reuters) – President Barack Obama saw first hand the human cost of the Afghanistan war as he welcomed home on Thursday 18 soldiers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed in Afghanistan this week.
Obama, flying in his Marine One presidential helicopter, landed shortly after midnight in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, home of the United States' largest military mortuary and main point of entry for U.S. service members killed abroad.
Minutes earlier, an Air Force C-17 transport aircraft landed in the base, carrying the bodies of eight Army soldiers killed by a roadside bomb and seven soldiers and three DEA agents killed in a helicopter crash, according to the military.
Obama went into a meeting with families of the killed soldiers and agents in a chapel on the base, military officials said.
Later, a military chaplain will accompany Obama and other officials onboard and say a prayer over each flag-draped casket before it is transferred out of the aircraft, the officials said.
Six service members will carry each casket. Most of the event was closed to media and journalists will be allowed to see the transfer of only one casket, bearing the body of Sergeant Dale Griffin of Indiana.
The previously unannounced trip, Obama's first visit to the Dover base as president, comes as he weighs whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight an insurgency that has reached its fiercest level in eight years.
DEADLIEST MONTH
This month has been the deadliest for U.S. forces in the unpopular eight-year war Obama inherited from his predecessor, George W. Bush, and which analysts say will likely help define his presidency.
Polls show Americans increasingly weary of the war and there is skepticism, including among Obama's fellow Democrats who control the U.S. Congress, over sending more troops.
Obama has held a series of meetings with his war Cabinet to review the new Afghan strategy he put in place in March and to consider a request by his top military commander in the field, General Stanley McChrystal, for 40,000 more troops to combat a resurgent Taliban.
He is set to meet again on Friday with Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the heads of the military services, the White House said.
Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said on Tuesday the decision-making process was "probably getting to the end" and a final decision could be expected in the coming weeks.
MEDIA BAN RELAXED
Critics, particularly among opposition Republicans, accuse Obama of being overly cautious and indecisive, but the White House has said a decision of such magnitude requires careful consideration.
The process has been complicated by an Afghan presidential election in August marred by widespread fraud in favor of incumbent president Hamid Karzai. A second round is due to be held on November 7.
Underlining the fragility of the security situation even in the capital, Kabul, Taliban militants stormed a guest-house in Kabul on Wednesday and killed five U.N. foreign staff.
About two-thirds of the 100,000 NATO-led forces are U.S. troops. More than 900 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon relaxed its ban on media coverage of returning U.S. war dead by allowing families to decide whether to allow photos and television footage of the flag-draped coffins of their loved ones.
The ban had been imposed since the days of the 1991 Gulf War with some exceptions, including the return of Navy seamen killed during the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000.
Bush imposed a stricter ban during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sparking criticism the federal government was hiding the human cost of its military operations.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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