Hundreds of prisoners escaped from a jail in southern Afghanistan on Friday after Taliban fighters blew off the gates in a suicide attack that killed several police officers, according to a U.S. military official. Many of those freed were apparently Taliban suspects.
The attack occurred in the evening in the southern city of Kandahar, a longtime stronghold of the Taliban insurgency, when attackers drove an explosives-laden vehicle toward the city jail, according to a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Prisoners breached the walls of the prison when a barrage of rocket and gunfire followed the initial attack.
Officials said that as many as 1,000 prisoners had been housed at the facility. Wali Karzai, president of Kandahar's provincial council, told the Associated Press that about 350 of the prisoners were suspected Taliban fighters.
Last month, about 200 Taliban suspects held at the prison ended a week-long hunger strike after a parliamentary delegation promised their cases would be reviewed, the AP said. Some of the protesting prisoners had sewn their mouths shut. Now that's a serious protest!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/14/2008 06:10 ||
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#1
Keeping Taliban/al-Qaeda prisoners behind mud walls makes sense to a moron.
#6
Good. Now we can shoot 'em instead of feeding them.
Posted by: Baby Face ||
06/14/2008 15:08 Comments ||
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#7
After all these years and after similiar escapades, why weren't there some sort of vehicle traps / obstacles in place. There is no reason for this sort of sh!t to still be happening!
(Xinhua) -- One soldier of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was killed in southern Afghanistan while a contracted supply helicopter of the ISAF was damaged in the east Friday, the ISAF said. The ISAF soldier was killed Friday as a result of a direct fire engagement with insurgents in Qalat district of Zabul province, the NATO-led military said in a statement, without releasing the casualty's nationality.
The supply helicopter contracted by the ISAF was damaged while conducting an emergency landing due to mechanical problems in the eastern province of Kunar, the ISAF said in a separate statement. No one was injured during the emergency landing, it said.
On June 9, a contracted supply aircraft of the ISAF was damaged by insurgent fire in Nuristan province of eastern Afghanistan, which caused no casualties to the force or aircraft crew.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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The Ethiopian troops based in the areas on Jawil and Kalabeyrka of Hiran region central Somalia have withdrawn there to the inside Ethiopia following armed Alshabab fighters attacked town in Ethiopia on Wednesday residents said.
Some residents told Shabelle that they could see armed covered Ethiopian vehicles on boarded by hundreds of soldiers pulled out towards Ferfer town in Ethiopia where mortars attack carried out by Alshabab fighters happened on Wednesday morning.
Some rumors from inside Ethiopia as well say that the withdrawal drive of Ethiopian troops is to maintain the security of Ferfer town in Ethiopia where Alshabab fighters attacked. Some reports say that the Ethiopian troops want to attack the islamists attacked in Ethiopia town those began new wave of attacks in Ethiopia.
Some eyewitnesses told Shabelle that the Ethiopian troops have forcibly driven on three civilian truck vehicles were using a toll road near the army bases they vacated those were loaded on the ethiopian troop's belongings.
'Some' this and 'some' that. It's about as well sourced as the New York Times ...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
So where do these Somali terrorists get their arms? The same place as Sudan's murderous government. Saudi Arabia.
Violence in the Somali capital Mogadishu and elsewhere has increased dramatically since a U.N.-backed peace agreement was signed Monday in Djibouti between Somalia's transitional federal government and a moderate faction of the Islamist-led opposition group in Eritrea.
That's why they try to avoid serious negotiations. A comprehensive peace accord would kill everybody in the country, by definition.
Somalia's militant Islamic Shabab group has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks and as VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu reports from our East Africa Bureau in Nairobi, the group is vowing more bloodshed to show its opposition to the deal.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that at least 30 civilians were killed and nearly 100 wounded in Mogadishu alone this week.
Witnesses say Shabab fighters, armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, have ambushed government and Ethiopian troops in various parts of the capital, including a deadly attack on Thursday on forces patrolling a road near the presidential palace.
On the same day and for the second time this month, the Shabab launched mortars at Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf at Mogadishu's airport as he tried to board a flight to Ethiopia.
Late Wednesday, residents in the border town of Ferfer in the ethnically Somali Ogaden region of Ethiopia say Shabab fighters attacked two Ethiopian military bases there and sparked heavy fighting that lasted nearly two hours. The militants briefly seized the town before withdrawing.
The spokesman for the Shabab group, Sheik Muktar Robow, says the attacks this week underscore the group's determination to defy what he called a false cease-fire agreement signed by men who do not represent his group.
Robow says Shabab fighters attacked the town of Ferfer and will continue to attack Ethiopians wherever they are until they are defeated. He went on to say, "We will see if those who signed the agreement can bring about a real cease-fire."
The Shabab, along with hardliners in an Eritrea-based opposition group called the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, boycotted the U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Djibouti. Those talks produced an agreement on Monday that calls for a three-month truce and the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops after the deployment of a sizeable force of U.N. peacekeepers in Somalia.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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An unmanned drone aircraft launched a missile after coming under fire from the ground in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan Saturday, killing one terrorist militant, officials said.
The incident in Makeen, in the insurgency-hit South Waziristan tribal region, comes just days after an airstrike by US-led coalition forces based in Afghanistan that Pakistan said had killed 11 of its troops.
"A drone was flying in the area of Makeen and extremists tried to hit it with a rocket-propelled grenade," a local security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The place from where the RPG was fired was struck by a missile fired by the unmanned drone killing one suspected terrorist militant," the official said. The Pakistani military and international forces in Afghanistan were not immediately available for comment.
Makeen is the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban terrorist commander Baitullah Mehsud, who is in peace talks with the government despite having been accused in December of masterminding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Posted by: ed ||
06/14/2008 17:17 ||
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#1
tried to hit a drone with an rpg? LOL!!!1!!
"nice shooting Haji. Accept this Hellfire prize."
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/14/2008 20:02 Comments ||
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#2
Now if Hussein O'Bama was in the oval office this would NOT have occured. Because, he would have caved in to the sham charges this past week after a couple of drones bumped off an entire unit firing into Afghanistan at our guys.
A suicide bomber blew himself in the office of a cable operator in the jurisdiction of Gaon police station in the Malakand Division on Thursday. According to ARY TV, the office was completely destroyed but no causalities were reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
REDDIT > Approxi 1,710 Taliban were allegedly released as per SUCIDE BOMBING agz their compound.
Local Taliban on Friday launched a crackdown against criminals in Doaba in the Hangu district. Armed Taliban attempted to set on fire a house and a vehicle of an alleged criminal Ilyas alias Saddar. Locals, however, restrained Taliban from setting the house on fire. Meanwhile, in two separate incidents, unidentified gunmen kidnapped three people including two Sikhs and stole a vehicle near the Toorawari area.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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The Wazir tribesmen of the Mir Ali area in the North Waziristan Agency on Friday disconnected power supply to North and South Waziristan due to an ongoing dispute among them, Aaj TV reported on Friday. According to the channel, the tribesmen cut off the transmission line supplying electricity to North and South Waziristan, suspending power supply in both agencies. Following the electricity suspension, patients admitted in the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Miranshah were discharged and private educational institutions were closed.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Suspected militants blew up a girls school in a remote village in northwestern Pakistan, the News Network International (NNI) news agency reported Friday.
Police said the bomb at the Girls Model School exploded Thursday night at a small village Sair in the city of Dir, some 200 km northwest of Peshawar, capital city of North West Frontier Province. The blast destroyed one room completely and caused damage to other parts of the building, according to NNI. Police said that unidentified people had distributed a letter a few days ago, asking the parents not to send daughters to schools as they were given English education. The guard of the school said that he was asleep when a huge explosion awakened him. The school was closed on Friday due to the blast.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen shot dead five people in Pakistan's tribal region on Friday, the News Network International (NNI) news agency reported.
The pro-government Tribal elder Malik Zahid-ud-Din was traveling in a car with his brothers, son and nephew when the gunmen attacked them in North Waziristan tribal area, said the report. The tribal elder and his relatives died on the spot and their car was completely destroyed in the attack. The assailants fled the scene after the attack.
There is no immediate claim of responsibility. Motives behind the attack are not clear and the authorities say they are investigating as to who are possible assailants.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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MIRANSHAH: Militants shot dead on Friday five tribesmen including a pro-government tribal elder near Miranshah. Malik Zahideen was travelling from Miranshah to his native Behramand village along with his two brothers and two nephews when four militants intercepted their vehicle near Kharseen, killing all five with heavy gunfire. The unidentified militants fled. According to AFP, militants shot dead the tribesmen suspecting they were spying for foreign forces in Afghanistan, a local official said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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A female suicide bomber targeted a crowd of soccer fans celebrating Iraq's win in a World Cup qualifier on Saturday, wounding at least 34 people near a cafe north of Baghdad, police said.
The young woman, who was covered in a traditional black Islamic robe, was dropped off by a car shortly before the attack as dozens of cheering young men poured out onto the streets after watching Iraq beat China 2-1 on television in the cafe in the town of Qara Tappah.
The woman told suspicious police that she was waiting for her husband but blew herself up after an officer spotted the detonator and began screaming at the crowd to disperse, according to the town's top administrator, Serwan Shukir.
Seven police and 27 civilians were among the wounded, Shukir said, but the officer's warning had averted a higher casualty toll by preventing the woman from reaching the bulk of the fans. Police Capt. Najib Khourshid said she was about 20 yards away from the crowd when the blast occurred.
"About 100 people were in the cafe and we went out to celebrate the victory after the match. Minutes later, a big explosion took place near us," said Salman Hameed, who was wounded in his chest and right hand. "The female bomber has spoiled our joy and celebration." Hameed, a Sunni Arab, said five of his Kurdish and Turkomen friends also were wounded in the attack.
Qara Tappah is a mainly Kurdish and Shiite Turkomen city, about 75 miles northeast of Baghdad in the volatile Diyala province. The attack followed warnings by U.S. officials that al-Qaida in Iraq is increasing efforts to recruit women as suicide attackers in a bid to subvert stepped up security measures, particularly in Diyala.
Also:
Helicopters blanketed Amarah with pamphlets Saturday urging residents to cooperate with Iraqi security forces as they prepare for a new operation against Shiite militia fighters in the oil-producing southern city.
The pamphlets urged residents to provide information about "the hideouts of outlaws" and warned them to stay indoors when the new operation dubbed "Imposing Law" starts, two local police officers said on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release information to the media. No kickoff date for the operation was provided in the pamphlets.
Iraqi soldiers accompanied by American military advisers have begun moving into Amarah, capital of Maysan province and the purported hub of weapons smuggling from nearby Iran.
U.S. and Iraqi commanders also say many militia chiefs have fled to Amarah a longtime safe haven for anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and Iran after security operations against them in Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City district.
A senior official in al-Sadr's office in the holy city of Najaf said a Sadrist delegation led by lawmaker Hazim al-Araji was sent Friday to Amarah to try to defuse the tensions and to encourage fighters to adhere to a cease-fire.
Local authorities asked him to spread the word among the Mahdi Army that they were issuing a three-day deadline starting Sunday for gunmen to hand over heavy and medium weapons or face arrest, a security official said. The ultimatum also was announced on local TV.
Posted by: ed ||
06/14/2008 16:42 ||
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The US military blamed Shia militia fighters yesterday for a bombing the day before that killed six Iraqi civilians and wounded nine other people, including two American soldiers in Baghdad.
US airstrikes also destroyed a booby-trapped house believed to be an Al Qaeda in Iraq hideout yesterday, killing four suspected insurgents northeast of the capital, the military said.
The blast occurred at about 9:45am on Wednesday when an armour-piercing roadside bomb targeted an American convoy in a northern section of the capital, the military said.
The statement, which gave the casualty toll, said the bomb was an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, a signature weapon of Shia militias that the US alleges comes from Iran. At least seven kilogrammes of explosives were used, it said. "These special groups criminals continue to indiscriminately attack, kill and injure innocent Iraqi civilians who are just trying to live their daily lives," said Lt-Colonel Steve Stover, a spokesman for US forces in Baghdad.
The US military uses the term "special groups criminals" to refer to what it says are Iranian-backed militia factions refusing to follow a cease-fire order by anti-US cleric Muqtada Al Sadr.
The explosion occurred near a bridge and those killed included a woman and a seven-year-old boy.
The attack came as the US and Iraqi militaries press forward with operations targeting the Shia militia fighters. Many of them are believed to have fled a crackdown in Baghdad's main Shia stronghold of Sadr City.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Iranian security forces have killed at least two militants in the northwestern city of Piranshahr near the Iraqi border, Iran's English-language Press TV satellite channel reported on Friday.
The clash took place after a six-member group of insurgents attempted to infiltrate the Iranian territory from the Iraqi border though Piranshahr highlands, said Colonel Shahnam Rezaei, head of the West Azarbaijan's provincial police information center.
Two militants were killed and three others wounded in the fighting, he said, adding that the militants had planned to carry out acts of sabotage inside the Islamic Republic.
West Azerbaijan province has been the scene of regular armed clashes between Iranian security forces and Kurdish militant parties, in particular the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an anti-Iranian Kurdish group linked to Turkey's outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).
Last week, at least 12 militants were killed by Iranian security forces in Piranshahr after some 40 insurgents infiltrated Iranian territory from the Iraqi border.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 00:00 ||
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I've got all the web sites copied from Shirley, our current server, to Helen, our new server. I intended to have this done last night, but I had to deal with a hard drive crash -- by coincidence on the machine that was backing up Rantburg. Iphigenia, with a new hard drive and the latest Ubuntu-flavored Linux operating system, now appears hale and hearty. Having all the files here gives me the week to fiddle with them and make some of the changes I've been wanting. I'm hoping we can do the switch next weekend.
tu3031, there's a message for you with the bartender in the O Club.
Sherry has graciously agreed to join us as a moderator. Her color will be greener than lotp's, not quite as dark green as Rab Steve's.
I will be offline for much of the weekend. Today is Baltimore's Hon Fest, where everybody who's anybody, plus most of us nobodies, shows up to eat and wear funny hats. We're meeting the Baltimore Mr. & Mrs. McIntosh for the occasion. This evening I'm hoping to be in Washington for a birthday party. Tomorrow is Father's Day and I'm invited to dine in the evening with the Washington Mr. & Mrs. McIntosh, who are in the early stages of expecting their first little bundle of joy. I have it on good authority that the child will be named Fred and grow up to be a paragon of virtue and a joy to his/her grandfather.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/14/2008 10:07 ||
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#1
I dig those 60's computers and the, uh, peripherals too.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/14/2008 11:26 Comments ||
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#2
I'm afraid you'll need to sacrifice Iphigenia in order to get out of Baltimore harbor.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
06/14/2008 13:28 Comments ||
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#3
Rab Steve? Who knew?
Posted by: George Smiley ||
06/14/2008 13:36 Comments ||
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#4
He's part of the Army of.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/14/2008 14:52 Comments ||
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#5
For those of you geeks who are younger, that thing hanging off the man's neck is called a "tie" -- its purpose is lost in antiquity, but it is believed to have been a torture device. They are now used mostly by lawyers and CEOs.
The stack of cards on the table is also a torture device, though that particular stack does not appear menacing. When they reached carton-sized proportions they were most vexing. I was awarded an advanced degree in 1980 in part because I was able to endure the task of transmuting several cartons of cards into a "boundary layer solution." Don't ask me what that is -- I haven't needed one since 1980.
#8
Having a tie on in a computer room can be particularly fun - especially if your an operator dealing with old fashioned line printers (and card readers, etc...).
#9
I understand lawyers are required to wear ties - keeps the foreskin from riding up
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/14/2008 19:40 Comments ||
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#10
Happy Father's Day, Fred. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/14/2008 20:25 Comments ||
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#11
And grandfather's day, too, Fred. Welcome to the cat herd, Sherry, and thank you! I look forward to reading interesting things framed in medium green.
#12
And the man in the back is fiddling with a tape drive, children. Those were reels of tape the size of an LP record -- er -- the size of a dinner plate which held an astonishing 140MB of data. Wow! I still have one, somewhere.
This is the main reason that photographic flash cameras were not allowed in data centers since they could (and did) trick the tape drives into falsely sensing [beginning-of-tape] and [end-of-tape]. It was rather spectacular to watch a whole bank of tape drives in fast rewind when a photo-flash went off.
I did not know that. I guess no one ever wanted to photograph our computer room.
#15
I wanna know who does Fred's proofreading: "plus most of us nobodies, shows up to eat and wear funny hats.."
Why would you want to eat a hat, funny or otherwise? Or was that a subtle test for testing the 'translate' button.
On a serious note, Happy Fathers', Grandfathers' and any other assorted flavor of Father out there Day
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
An unmanned drone aircraft launched a missile after coming under fire from the ground in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan Saturday, killing one 
(Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen shot dead five people in Pakistan's tribal region on Friday, the News Network International (NNI) news agency reported. 
A female suicide bomber targeted a crowd of soccer fans celebrating Iraq's win in a World Cup qualifier on Saturday, wounding at least 34 people near a cafe north of Baghdad, police said.
I've got all the web sites copied from Shirley, our current server, to Helen, our new server. I intended to have this done last night, but I had to deal with a hard drive crash -- by coincidence on the machine that was backing up Rantburg. Iphigenia, with a new hard drive and the latest Ubuntu-flavored Linux operating system, now appears hale and hearty. Having all the files here gives me the week to fiddle with them and make some of the changes I've been wanting. I'm hoping we can do the switch next weekend.
