Reported Security Incidents
Kirkuk
Suicide car bombing at a bank where police were receiving their pay kills 2, injures up to 60. The dead are 1 policeman and 1 civilian; most of the wounded are police. DPA gives the death toll as 3.
Not clear if this is an early, incomplete version of the above incident or a different one: Twelve people injured in a boob-trapped car explosion near Kirkuk hospital.
Zab Township, southwest of Kirkuk
Iraq army officer and his bodyguard are killed, 3 other soldiers injured in a roadside bombing.
Baghdad
Police officer is killed by a gunman on a motorbike. Also, an employee of the government TV channel dies of wounds suffered in a shooting on Wednesday.
Police officer killed and another injured in an attack on an Interior Ministry vehicle northeast of Baghdad.
Afghanistan Update
ISAF announces 3 troops killed in a bombing in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday; two others dead in two separate incidents. As usual, no details as of yet. AFP also reports two Afghan policewomen and a civilian killed by a roadside bomb on their way to work at Herat airport. TOLO clarifies that one of the separate incidents yesterday was the New Zealand soldier previously reported; the other a non-combat incident.
UN reports violence in Afghanistan up 40% over last year, contradicting claims by U.S. military leaders that violence has declined:
The U.N. report, information for which is compiled by the U.N. mission here and submitted to the Security Council quarterly, said that as of the end of August, there had been an average of 2,108 "security incidents" each month this year, a 39 percent increase compared with the same period in 2010. . . .
A report from the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in August painted a sharply different situation. "Throughout 2011 ISAF has seen significant security improvements throughout Afghanistan and violence is down in 12 of the past 16 weeks as compared to the same period in 2010," the coalition's report said. There was no comment from coalition spokesmen on the U.N. report.
