War News for Monday, August 22, 2011

The Australian DoD is reporting the death of an Australian ISAF soldier from an IED blast in the Khas Uruzgan area 85km north-east of Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan on Monday, August 22nd. An additional soldier was wounded in the blast.


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: In Baghdad, a soldier was killed and another injured early in the morning when gunmen using silenced weapons attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad northeastern district of al-Benoug, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

#2: Separately, two people were wounded when a roadside bomb ripped through Baghdad's western district of al-Adil, the source said.


Basra:
#1: An Iraqi Navy Captain has been abducted by unknown gunmen in southern Iraq’s city of Basra, Iraq’s state-owned General Ports Company reported on Monday. “A group of unknown gunmen have abducted the Navy Captain, Qais Jaber Abdul-Latif, at the center of Basra city and took him to an unknown destination on Sunday, a Company spokesman said, adding that the abducted Captain had been working with the Iraqi General Navigation Company.


Irbil:
#1: Seven Iraqis were killed in an airstrike by a Turkish warplane in Iraq's semi-autonomous northern Kurdish zone on Sunday, the first civilian casualties since the strikes began, a local mayor and eyewitnesses said. The strike hit a car in which the civilians were travelling, Hassan Abdulla, mayor of the town of Qalat Dizah, located northeast of the city of Sulaimaniya, told Reuters. "Today there was a rocket from a Turkish plane that hit a civilian vehicle, a pickup, carrying seven civilians. The seven were killed," Abdulla said. "The rocket has badly damaged the car. We could not recognise the bodies, their ages, their identities or even their sex."


Mosul:
#1: In northern Iraq, an Iraqi army officer and a soldier were killed late on Sunday when a booby-trapped car struck their patrol in al-Ghabat area in northern the city of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a local police source anonymously told Xinhua. Three passers-by were also wounded by the blast, the source said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Five Afghan civilians were killed Monday in an explosion in the southern province of Helmand, a local official said. 'Five innocent countrymen were martyred and four others were injured Monday morning when a hidden explosive device went off in a vegetable market in Grishq district of Helmand,' the provincial governor's office said.

Two civilians were killed and four more wounded when a mortar inside an old metal shop in a busy market of Grishk district of southern Helmand province detonated on Monday, Grishk police chief Saifullah Mangal said

#2: On Sunday, police killed a Taliban deputy commander on the outskirts of nearby Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, it said.

#3: On Sunday, gunmen killed community council member Jan Mohammad Khan in the town's market, the Helmand governor's office said in a statement.

Two gunmen on motorcycles killed a government prosecutor in the turbulent south of Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said. The attackers shot Mohammad Azam, the chief prosecutor for Helmand province's Gereshk district, in the morning as he headed out to work, said Helmand province attorney general Khushahal Shapa.

#4: In the east, meanwhile, a NATO drone crashed in the city of Jalalabad, said Capt. Pietro D'Angelo of the Italian army, a spokesman for NATO forces in Kabul. Initial reports indicated that the drone went down because of a mechanical failure, D'Angelo said. There were no injuries, but an Associated Press photographer at the site reported that two houses were damaged. The Taliban claimed to have shot down the aircraft.

#5: update Two Nepali security guards were among the nine killed Friday in a coordinated suicide attack in the Afghan capital, officials said. Six Taliban militants attacked the British Council

#6: At least 15 oil tankers were set fire when some unidentified miscreants opened fires on NATO suppliers near Dasht on Monday. Police said that miscreants attacked the tanker carrying oil for NATO troops stationed in Afghanistan near Dasht area of Mastang district of Baluchistan. The tanker caught fire as a result of gunshots.

About a dozen gunmen in Pakistan's southwestern district of Mastung attacked and set fire to some 18 trucks carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan, government and security officials said. There were no reported casualties. Five NATO trucks were set ablaze in the same region on Friday.


DoD: Pfc. Douglas L. Cordo

NZDF: Corporal Douglas Grant