War News for Saturday, January 29, 2011

Iraq water shortages raising ethnic tensions

Syrian oil output hits 141 million barrels

6 members of prominent family in Kabul among those killed in suicide bombing at supermarket

Deadly Attack by Taliban in Kabul Sought to Kill Head of Blackwater

Two Canadians hurt in deadly blast

Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: A roadside bomb wounded a civilian in eastern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

Diyala Prv:
#1: A Member of northeast Iraq Diala Province’s Mayorship has been assassinated by a group of unknown gunmen on Saturday, a Diala security source said. “A group of unknown gunmen broke through the residence of Diala’s Mayorship Member, Abdul-Rahman Juma’a, opening machinegun fire and killing him on the spot,” the security source said.

Kut:
#1: Southern Iraq’s Wassit Province’s Anti-Explosives Force have managed to dismantle two Katusha rockets, reading for launching towards a residential area east of Kut city, the capital of the Province, whilst another force had discovered an ammunition dump, comprising 87 rockets of different sizes in the north of the city, a Wassit security source said on Friday.

Kirkuk:
#1: In Kirkuk, gunmen wounded in a drive by shooting a civilian in Al Shorja region.

Mosul:
#1: Two policemen and a civilian have been injured in a hand-grenade attack, targeted against a police patrol in eastern Mosul, whilst the security forces had managed to detain four persons, while they were loading a booby-trapped car in a service plant, a security source said on Friday. “A group of unknown gunmen threw a hand-grenade on a Ninewa Emergency Police patrol in eastern Mosul, that blew off, wounding two polilcemen and a civilian that happened to be in the venue of the blast,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: A roadside bomb wounded two policemen and a civilian when it exploded near a police patrol in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#3: Iraqi soldiers defused a car bomb and arrested four suspects during a raid at a cement factory south of Mosul, Army Colonel Imad al-Din Abdul-Kareem said.

Afghanistan: “The Forgotten War”
#1: A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle packed with explosives rammed into a car carrying the deputy governor of Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province on Saturday, killing him and wounding three of his bodyguards, the Interior Ministry said. The attacker struck as the official, Abdul Latif Ashna, was being driven to work in the provincial capital, said a ministry spokesman, Zemeri Bashary.

#2: Up to five people are reported to have been killed and nearly 20 others injured in at least one vehicle explosion in northwestern Pakistan, not far from the border with Afghanistan. Reports quote officials as saying a vehicle exploded late on January 28 in the Kohat tunnel, which connects the main northwestern city of Peshawar to the southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sind provinces.

Four people have been killed and 19 injured in twin truck bomb blasts in Pakistan. A truck packed with more than 500 kilograms of explosives blew up inside a tunnel in north western Pakistan. A short time later, an oil tanker also carrying explosives was detonated outside the tunnel connecting Peshawar in Khyber Paktunkhwa Province to the city of Kohat. A passenger van travelling behind the tanker was destroyed. The explosion also severely damaged a check point operated by officers from the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

#3: Ten people including four policemen were injured Saturday when a car bomb targeting a senior police official exploded in the southwestern city of Quetta, police said. The bomb, planted in a Suzuki car, exploded as a police vehicle carrying Shaban Ali passed through the heart of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas rich Baluchistan province, senior police official Hamid Shakeel told AFP. “At least 10 people including four policemen and and six passers-by were wounded in the attack targeting Shaban Ali, who remained unhurt.” Shakeel said.

#4-5: Elsewhere in the restive northwestern Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border, an improvised explosive device (IED) and mortar attack wounded three people including a soldier on Saturday.

#4: “The IED blast took place immediately after a convoy of security forces passed,” top local administration official Shafeerullah Khan said.

#5: He added that a mortar fired from an undisclosed location landed near the Bara press club. “At least three people were injured in the two attacks.”

#6: (update) In the latest attack on convoys in Pakistan carrying supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, unidentified men torched two NATO oil tankers in the Pinjra Pul area of Dhaddar in Balochistan. According to police sources, the oil tankers were going from Karachi to Chaman on Friday, when a group of men riding a motorcycle opened fire on them near the Marri Petrol pump, the Daily Times reports. The assailants intercepted the oil tankers, took out the drivers and then set both tankers on fire before escaping. Police reached the spot soon after the incident and cordoned off the area. A case has been registered against the unidentified persons and investigations are underway. Earlier, there have been similar attacks on the convoys carrying supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan in Quetta, Naseerabad and Shikarpur areas of Pakistan. (ANI)

#7: Security forces, backed by helicopter gunships, have killed nearly a dozen militants in the tribal region of Mohmand on the Afghan border, where troops are carrying out small-scale operations against insurgents, government officials said on Saturday. Nearly two dozens militants have been killed in the past two days of fighting. There was no independent verification of the death toll and militants often dismiss official reports

#8: Four security guards were killed Saturday as their vehicle run over a mine in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, deputy to provincial police chief said. “Four security guards were killed when their car hit a roadside bomb in Nawa district west of provincial capital Lashkar Gah today at around 11 a.m. local time (0630 GMT),” Kamaluddin Shirzai told Xinhua. The police official said the ill-fated guards were serving for a local private security company.

#9: Twin bomb explosions have been reported on Saturday in the northwestern Pakistani tribal agency of Khyber, injuring several people, local sources said. According to the initial report, the first bomb explosion took place near the press club after which heavy firing was heard in the Bara Bazar area adjacent to Peshawar. Another blast rocked the same area minutes after the first one.

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