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

DON'T JUST READ ABOUT IT - Help support end the war activities by making a contribution to Texans for Peace today>>

Leaked docs show more problems; 2 sailors hostage; 8 US casualties; Helicopter down; US drones in Pakistan kill 19

A huge cache of secret US military files released on Sunday by Wikileaks provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency. The disclosures come from nearly 91,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The war logs detail: How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial, how the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles, how the coalition is increasingly using deadly drones, and how the Taliban operates.

In Afghanistan on Monday, four U.S. soldiers were injured made a hard landing on the perimeter of a military camp in eastern Kabul.

A massive search operation is underay for 2 U.S. Navy sailors that the Taliban says it captured in a village in the Logar province, 37 miles south of Kabul on July 23. The two servicemen left a compound in the capital,, in an armored sport-utility vehicle which came under fire from Taliban forces in the Charkh district. One of the occupants may have been killed and the other captured, according to ISAF. NATO has offered a $20,000 reward for any information to help locate the servicemen.

Eight U.S. soldiers were killed or injured in a variety of incidents on Saturday and Sunday. Four service members died in one IED attack and one was killed in the other attack.

A suicide bomber blew up a vehicle by the Baghdad offices of Al-Arabiya television on Monday, killing at least four people and wounding scores more. Eight policemen and six civilians were wounded when two roadside bomb struck a police patrol in the Ghazaliya district of western Baghdad on Sunday. There were 13 more casualties on Sunday and Saturday throughout Bagdhad, Mosul and Basra.

Nineteen people died in three US drone strikes in north-west Pakistan on Sunday, a day after a similar raid killed 16 others. Saturday's missile strike by an unmanned US plane killed 16 suspected insurgents at a compound in Dwasarak village. As many as 10 suspected militants died in a strike in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan on Sunday morning. Later, two more raids killed five in Tabbi Tolkhel, North Waziristan, and four in Srarogha, South Waziristan. posted 26 July, 2010

3 more US casualties in Iraq, 6 more in Afghanistan; Mosque bombed in Bahramkhail; Waste in Afghanistan; Iraq inquiry heats up

A rocket attack in Baghdad's Green Zone on Thursday killed three guards employed by the U.S. Embassy and wounded 15 people, including two Americans. In a statement on the Green Zone attack, the embassy said all those killed and wounded worked for a government contractor - Triple Canopy - that protects U.S. facilities in Iraq. A U.S. soldier was killed by an IED in Diyala province on Thursday.

A suicide bomber targeted the convoy of a Turkmen general who was on his way home after Friday prayers in Kirkuk, killing one police officer and wounding 15 others. On Wednesday, a car bomb killed 30 people and wounded 46 near a mosque in a predominantly Shiite area of the mixed city of Baqouba.

A helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing two American service members and wounding three others. The Pentagon announced that another U.S. Marine was killed on Tuesday. Two British soldiers were killed last night as they tried to evacuate an injured colleague in the midst of a small arms fire in Lashkar Gah District, Helmand Province overnight. A Danish soldier was killed by an IED on Wednesday.

At least 20 people, including a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections, were injured Friday when a bomb exploded inside a mosque in in Bahramkhail, a village in Khost province's Ismailkhail district. Insurgents beheaded six policemen after attacking their checkpoint in Baghlan province on Wednesday.

A federal watchdog criticized U.S. agencies on Thursday for squandering taxpayer money on facilities in Afghanistan that are too complex and costly for the Afghan government to maintain even as other U.S. officials acknowledge that they plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to hire contractors to operate a complex of buildings in troubled Kandahar and other facilities in Afghanistan for the next 10 years. A federal auditor complained in a report that the buildings constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Afghan national police represent an "outrageous waste of taxpayer money." He said the problems are representative of a "regular negative pattern" in overly complex construction in the country. One project in Kandahar, called the Joint Regional Afghan Security Forces Compound, cost about $45 million. It includes administrative and training buildings, a vehicle maintenance shop, warehouses and barracks. U.S. officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to the auditor that Afghans don't have the money or technical expertise to run the compound on their own. As a result, they are planning to have the complex and other buildings in the country operated over the next 10 years by independent contractors — under agreements they expect to be worth about $800 million.

Former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller has come out of the shadows to give evidence in public to the U.K.'s inquiry in to the war in Iraq. She pulled no punches as she launched into a frank assessment of the impact of the Iraq invasion of 2003 this week. She said that it led directly to radicalization of some of Britian's youth and she cautioned against "an over-reliance on fragmentary intelligence" that led to the war. She also set the scene for the final week when the witnesses will include Hans Blix, the former UN chief weapons inspector, and Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister. posted 23 July, 2010

Clashes in Turkey; Clinton in Kabul; Attacks in Pakistan

Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, killed at least seven Turkish soldiers in clashes along the border with Iraq, bringing renewed sparring between the government and the opposition over anti-terrorism policies. Troops and Kurdish militants were still fighting today in the region around Kavusak village in Hakkari province of Turkey.

In Iraq, eight people were killed and 25 injured on Tuesday in two attacks in Iraq, Baqouba and Kirkuk. A suicide car bomber ploughed into a convoy of a British security company in northern Iraq on Monday, killing four foreigners and wounding five Iraqi civilians. Three Iraqi soldiers were killed by a bomb in Basra.

U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, met with General Petraeus and Ambassador Eikenberry is advance of a 1-day international conference in Kabul. Today's meeting in involved delegates from some 70 countries who have troops in Afghanistan or give aid to the embattled country. Clinton defended U.S. "stategy" in America's longest war, calling it a "fight worth waging". She insisted that despite all the bad news coming out of Afghanistan, there was progress on the ground and "life was improving for the average Afghan". On Monday, the Pentagon announced the deaths of two more Marines.

In Pakistan, police reinforcements were called into Faisalabad a day after two Christians charged with blasphemy were shot dead outside court. Clashes broke out in the city, home to a large Christian community, after the brothers were gunned down. Pakistani army officials said they killed eight insurgents, including three suicide bombers. A suicide bomb exploded at a mosque in Sargodha yesterday, killing the bomber and wounding at least 15 people as the performed their evening prayers. posted 20 July, 2010