War News for Tuesday, July 20, 2010

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an IED blast in an unidentified location in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, July 20th.


Ex-M15 spy chief testifies at UK's Iraq inquiry:
"There was no credible intelligence to suggest that connection and that was the judgment, I might say, of the CIA," she told the inquiry. "It was not a judgment that found favour with some parts of the American machine." Manningham-Buller said those pushing the case for war had given undue prominence to scraps of inconclusive intelligence on possible links between Iraq and the 2001 attacks. She suggested the dispute led former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to disregard CIA intelligence in favour of work produced by his own department.

Saddam 'had limited attack ability':

6 Turkish Soldiers Killed in Kurdish Attack

Iraq’s Conflict, Reflected in a Family Tragedy


Reported security incidents

Diyala Prv:
#1: A suicide car bomber struck a residential area in a town in Diyala province in eastern Iraq on Tuesday, killing three civilians and wounding nine others, a provincial police source said. The attack took place around midday when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car at a residential area in the town of Qara-Tappa, some 120 km north of the provincial capital city of Baquba, the source from Diyala operations command told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The powerful blast destroyed three houses in the Shiite Turkman neighborhood, the source said.

#2: Late on Monday, Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, was the scene of another suicide bomb attack when a suicide bomber detonated his booby-trapped car at a parking lot close to the casino in the city, killing seven people and wounding 26 others.


Kirkuk:
#1: “A roadside bomb went off today targeting a police patrol near the Domez Bridge, south of Kirkuk city, wounding three policemen and damaging their patrol vehicle,” a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: “Two roadside bombs went off today targeting an Iraqi army patrol near the al-Zab district, 85 km southwest of Kirkuk city, wounding a soldier and damaging the patrol’s vehicle,” another police source said.

#3: Gunmen on a motorcycle shot and injured a civilian in southeastern Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Tal Afar:
#1: Iraqi army forces killed on Monday a suicide bomber in central Talafar in west of Mosul, according to a military commander. “A force from the 10th brigade of the 3rd division of the Iraqi army killed on Monday afternoon (July 19) a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt strapped to his body before detonating himself in a crowded area in al-Taliaa neighborhood in central Talafar,” Brigadier Abdulrahman Hanzal Abu Raghief told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “The forces stopped the man and asked him to show his identity, but he threw a hand grenade on them. They riddled him with bullets before detonating him remotely without casualties,” he added.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: A sticky bomb attached to car of an anti-al Qaeda Sahwa militia leader killed him in western Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: NATO troops said they killed several insurgents preparing to attack a major international conference in Kabul, with the Afghan capital under security lockdown for the high profile event on Tuesday. The alleged militants were killed during a raid on a house on the southern edge of the city overnight, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, suspecting the Taliban of plotting an attack on the conference. Two other militants were captured while "pursuing a Taliban facilitator believed to be in final stages of preparation for attacks against the Kabul conference," it said.

#2: The interior ministry said suspected militants fired rockets into Kabul late Monday, landing near the airport but causing no casualties.

Local journalists said two short-range rockets had landed early on July 20 at Kabul International Airport. According to the reports, several people were injured as a result.

Intense rocket barrage prevented a plane carrying United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt from landing at the Kabul airport on Tuesday and the aircraft was forced to be diverted to Bagram air base. The two dignitaries were arriving in the Afghan capital to attend an International Conference on Afghanistan and the attack was confirmed by the Swedish foreign minister on his blog. "...Rockets hit the airport just when we were coming in to land," read the blog posted at 05:30 hours in the morning (local time). Officials later confirmed that the flight was diverted to nearby Bagram base from where the two VVIPs were ferried by a Black Hawk helicopter.

#3: Five militants were killed Tuesday morning when security forces thwarted a planned attack targeting a military training camp in northwest Pakistan, intelligence officials told CNN. Two Pakistani intelligence officials said security forces opened fire on the militants as they were scaling one of the camp walls around 6 a.m.Tuesday morning. Three of the attackers, who were strapped with suicide vests, blew themselves up during the gunfight, officials said. They said security forces shot and killed two militants. Another two militants remain at large.The training camp is located in Mardan, a city in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

#4: In other events, Pakistani jet fighters and helicopters pounded militant hideouts with air strikes on Monday killing 42 suspected militants, two Pakistani intelligence officials told CNN. The officials said the militant hideouts were located in Orakzai and Kurram, two of the seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border. In March, the Pakistan military launched an offensive in Orakzai to flush out foreign and Pakistani militants who had escaped an earlier offensive in South Waziristan.

#5: Two people were killed and five others were injured on July 20 when a bomb went off in the Afgnah capital, Kabul, just ahead of the International Conference on Afghanistan, witnesses said, according to RIA Novosti. The blast reportedly occurred in Kabul's Khair Khana area at about 6:10am MOSCOW time (2:10am GMT) despite enhanced security measures. The Afghan Interior Ministry confirmed the reports on the blast, which, according to the ministry, injured several people. The ministry has called on Kabul residents to stay home on July 20.


DoD: Sgt. Matthew W. Weikert

DoD: Sgt. 1st Class John H. Jarrell

DoD: Sgt. Leston M. Winters

DoD: Cpl. Dave M. Santos

DoD: Staff Sgt. Justus S. Bartelt