Daily Iraq War News - End the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

Because several top Sunni leaders — including Saleh al-Mutlaq, the head of a secular coalition that also includes former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi — are among those now banned from running in the election, the move is being widely perceived by the country's Sunnis as an attempt by the Shi'ite-dominated government to limit the expected gains by Sunni parties in the coming contest. And it also appears that the targets of the commission are more than just Sunni politicians but also rivals of President Nouri al-Maliki and his supporters. It appears the Iraq's leaders are following the playbook of Karzai in Afghanistan where those placed in power by the U.S. are able to rig elections in their favor - with near impunity.

Meanwhile, violence continues throughout Iraq. On Monday, a bomb attached to a car wounded two people in Mashtal district, eastern Baghdad. In Mosul, two people were shot and killed. Police found the body of a woman with bullet wounds to the head and chest in the south of Kirkuk. At least five Iraqis have died in the Azimiya neighborhood of Baghdad after unidentified assailants opened fire on them on Tuesday at a non-government organization engaged in humanitarian assistance activities.

Kabul was rocked by coordinated bombings and attacks by the Taliban on Monday triggering fierce gun battles with security forces and killing at least five people including a child and leaving another 71 wounded. Fires raged after two shopping centres, a cinema and the only five-star hotel in the Afghan capital were targeted by heavily armed militants. Security is tight in Kabul on Tuesday as troops set up new checkpoints to check vehicles and worry about additional suicide bombers in the city.

The head of Germany's Catholic Church, Robert Zollitsch, has criticised the country's military mission in Afghanistan as government and military leaders plan their next offensive. His comments came after the leader of the Protestants had called for a complete withdrawal. Just before Christmas, the head of the Protestant Church Bishop Margot Kaessmann, had strongly condemned the situation in Afghanistan, calling for the withdrawal of the 4,400 German troops stationed in the country. "There is no such thing as a 'just war.' I cannot legitimize it from a Christian point of view," Kaessmann said. "There is nothing right in Afghanistan. All these strategies have just obscured the fact that soldiers are using their guns and even killing civilians."

Indian troops fired across the border running through the disputed territory of Kashmir on Tuesday, killing one Pakistani soldier and wounding another. India said Pakistani troops fired rockets and bullets in the same area Monday night, and Indian troops returned fire. posted 19 January, 2010

US drone kills 20 in Pakistan; 4 US soldiers dead; "Flying" IEDs; Shell wins big oil deal in Iraq

A US drone attack on Sunday in Shaktoi area of Pakistan killed 20 people. Shaktio in southeast of Miranshah, is the main town in the rugged tribal region of North Waziristan -- the same spot where US missiles pounded an extremist hideout on Thursday. Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was reportedly the target of the attack, but apparently was not injured. escaped. A suicide bomber detonated his explosives on the Pakistani side of the Kashmir region on Saturday in a rare attack on the Pakistani military there.

In face of a growing anti-Americanism among the Pakistan military, the US army is training a unit to 'protect' Pakistan's nuclear facilities. The U.S. army unit would be responsible to take back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event the militants gain access to the strategic devices and materials, the Pakistani daily The Nation reported Sunday.

In Afghanistan, a U.S. soldier was reported killed on Saturday in Eastern Afghanistan. Another soldier was killed on Thursday. Two American soldiers were killed on Wednesday. A Canadian soldier was in the Panjwaii district on Saturday. Two British soldiers were killed by an IED on Friday.

Gunmen kidnapped two Chinese engineers and four Afghans in Qaisar district in northern Faryab province Saturday night. A district governor and five police - including a senior officer - were killed in a Taliban ambush on Sunday in Chesht Sharif district of western Herat province. An air strike by a NATO-led force killed five insurgents during a clash involving Afghan troops in southern Helmand province. A land mine blast killed two Afghan soldiers. German troops shot dead an Afghan civilian whose vehicle approached a convoy on Sunday morning in Sangin area of Helmand.

Three explosions ripped through the city of Najaf in Iraq on Thursday killing at least two dozen and wounding scores more Iraqis. The bombings were the first in Najaf since 2006 and occurred two days after security officials found hundreds of pounds of explosives during morning raids and locked down parts of Baghdad. A wide-ranging plot to bomb government ministries and other public places, to be followed by a wave of political assassinations, was uncovered by Iraqi officials, who responded Tuesday by bringing much of Baghdad to a virtual standstill.

The U.S. military said Friday that fighters who launched the Jan. 12 attack on a joint U.S.-Iraqi compound used an unusual weapon called an IRAM, for improvised rocket-assisted munition. Sometimes called "flying IEDs." In the most recent incident, one of the IRAMs exploded - a 60-pound airborne bomb - hit, leaving a 12-foot crater in the ground. The bomb punched through a concrete blast wall and sent shrapnel flying, wounding three Americans.

A U.S. soldier who fled to Canada to avoid being deployed to Iraq has been released from a military prison after serving his sentence for desertion. Cliff Cornell was released Saturday from the prison at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He had pleaded guilty to desertion and was sentenced to a year in prison in April 2009, but was released early.

Oil giant Shell and Malaysia's state-run Petronas oil company finalized a contract on Sunday to develop to develop the 12.6bn barrel field in southern Iraq - the giant Majnoon oil field. The field currently produces just 46,000 barrels per day. Shell and Petronas have pledged to increase that output to 1.8 million barrels per day. Their joint-venture, which includes a 20-year service contract, will see the firms receive a fee of $1.39 a barrel of oil. posted 17 January, 2010

Afghans take control of Bagram prison; 2 US soldiers dead; War widens with India

Roadside bombs killed eight Afghan soldiers, an American service member and a Danish soldier in separate episodes in Afghanistan on Friday. A rocket has hit a building housing the new U.S. consulate office in Herat on Friday. An Afghan Army vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Uruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan, killing the eight soldiers inside. on Thursday. A suicide bomber also killed seven people at a busy bazaar in Gardez in eastern Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has decided to take over Bagram prison, which has, up to now, been under the control of the US military. The US-run detention facility was handed over on Saturday at a signing ceremony. Afghanistan's Defence Ministry will now be in control of the site, near Kabul, that has been used to hold Taliban detainees since 2001. Two men who worked as security contractors for the company formerly known as Blackwater (Xe) were charged with murder in the killings of two Afghan men.

Pakistani officials said that a militant commander blew himself up with a grenade, apparently to escape capture during a police raid in Peshawar earlier today. Four people in Pakistan died Saturday when a U.S. drone fired two missiles at a target close to the Afghan border. The drone struck a compound in the village of Ismail Khan in the Dattakhel area of North Waziristan. Pakistan has renewed calls for an end to U.S. drone aircraft strikes.

Indian border guards say they fired four rockets and fifty gunshots into Pakistan in retaliation for a similar amount of fire from the other side as WW III continues to widen. Hundreds of residents staged a protest against Indian rule Saturday outside a UN office in Indian Kashmir's main city, accusing the police of shooting a teenaged boy. Elsewhere in Srinagar, police fired teargas and used batons to break up similar protests. On Friday, 20 protesters and four policemen were hurt in an anti-India demonstration, which erupted a day after troops killed two militants holed up in a Srinagar hotel.

In Iraq, a roadside bomb wounded four civilians in southeastern Baghdad on Saturday. In Kirkuk, gunmen shot and wounded an off-duty Iraqi soldier. Five men were killed after attacking U.S. soldiers on Friday on the Mosul-Baghdad road, south of Mosul. A bomb attached to a car exploded in a parked vehicle in Shirqat. A series of blasts killed six people in Iraq's western province of Anbar on Thursday. On Tuesday, a U.S. soldier died in combat

More news on Yemen, Somalia, Iran and India planned, as the war widens into World War Three in 2010. posted 10 January, 2010

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