Casualty sites reporting
March 14, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)
• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 154] Wounded 31,706-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,606-104,304, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,382 U.S., 4,700 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,020 U.S., 1,685 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: : [not current] 1,366,350 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
Bloodletting News from U.S. Middle East/Central/South Asia WAR
March 14, 2010
AFGHANISTAN
Latest reports estimate 35 people have died and 45 wounded including civilians and police officers following explosions hit Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. … Kandahar is Afghanistan’s third biggest city, after Kabul and Herat, and was the spiritual capital of the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Remnants of the movement have regrouped to wage an increasingly deadly insurgency, which last year killed more than 500 foreign soldiers.
March 13, 2010
PAKISTAN
Latest reports estimate 14 people have died and 50 wounded in a suicide attack in Pakistan’s Swat valley. This Saturday incident at a security checkpoint in Saidu Sharif town follows the previous day’s twin suicide attack on a military convoy in the city of Lahore the RA Bazaar a residential and commercial neighborhood where 49 people died. On Monday in the same city, 13 people died after a suicide car bombing targeting a police intelligence building.
The Lahore attack, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hashem Ahelbarra reporting from Islamabad, “could be a clear message from the Taliban that although they were driven away from places like Swat, and their leadership is being hunted by the Americans and the Pakistani intelligence, they still have the capability to inflict maximum damage... The latest attacks seem to point to a fresh spike in violence.”
March 11-14, 2010
PALESTINE
Settlement expansion ─ Israel has extended a lockdown on the occupied West Bank and restricted access to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. Restrictions have been enforced since March 5 when police battled Muslim protesters at the mosque after weekly prayers. Tensions continue to build over Israel’s plans to build new homes for Jewish settlers in mainly Arab east Jerusalem… Saturday in the West Bank Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian women and youths protesting Israel’s settlement plans.
Clashes erupted last week after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced plans to include two sites in the West Bank on a list of Israeli heritage sites. An interior ministry announcement of the approval of plans to build 1,600 new Jewish homes in East Jerusalem contributed to the tensions. Israel occupied East Jerusalem after the 1967 war with the Arabs and built settlements considered illegal under international law.
Expansion despite “superpower” ─ Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered an investigation into how government officials announced plans for a new Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden.…The Israeli settlement issue has been one of the main issues blocking the Israeli-Palestinian talks. …
“Things have been incredibly tense here following the announcement that there will be more Jewish housing units built on occupied Palestinian land,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Sherine Tadros reporting from Jerusalem. “I think that Palestinians are not just concerned once again that their presence in Jerusalem will be diminished and that Israel is trying to ‘cleanse’ them from the Holy Land; but also by the fact that these announcements came right under the nose, if you like, of the U.S. and [that] the international community is doing nothing to stop it.… Palestinians have always demanded that talks should not start without Israeli commitment to a complete settlement freeze.…”
EU affirms Goldstone Report ─ The European Parliament has backed the findings of a United Nations-backed report into last year’s [December 2008-January 2009] “Gaza war.” The Goldstone report had heavily criticized Israel and accused both Tel Aviv and Hamas of war crimes. … A key finding of the Goldstone report published last September [2009] was that Israel used disproportionate force in response to rocket attacks by Gaza-based fighters and failed to take adequate measures to protect civilians during its onslaught… After the United Nations, the European Parliament is the second institution to stand in favor of the report. The measure passed the European assembly by 335-287.
[The U.S. legislature in H.RES.867 has positioned the U.S. government against the Goldstone Report begging the question of whether the U.S. is or ever has been seriously committed to peace, a just peace in the Middle East.]
The European Union also has criticized Israel over its suspected role in the slaying of a Hamas operative this year (January 19) in Dubai and the killers’ alleged use of forged EU passports. The EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Wednesday condemned Israel’s plan to expand a Jewish neighborhood in disputed east Jerusalem, saying it should reverse the decision and “‘refrain from unilateral decisions and actions that may jeopardize the final status negotiations.’” Ashton [planning to visit Gaza] said the settlements are “‘illegal under international law … undermine current efforts for restarting peace negotiations ... and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible.’”
March 13, 2010
IRAQ
Overall results from Iraq’s March 7 general elections are still too close to call. Preliminary totals on Saturday from 10 of Iraq’s 18 provinces represented only a fraction of the vote. No figures were in from areas like Basra.
Sources
Deadly blast rocks Afghan city, March 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031316756363636.html
“Death in Pakistan Swat blast,” March 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031345755965359.html
“Israel extends West Bank closure,” March 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031323279106954.html
“Israel to probe ‘Biden fiasco,’” March 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/20103145338732887.html
“EU endorses Goldstone report,” March 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/03/201031115544623320.html
“Iraq vote count too close to call,” March 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031317039231784.html
H.RES.867 Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora” sponsored: U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, [FL-18] (introduced 10/23/2009) and cosponsored by 202 members. The bill’s latest major action: November 3, 2009; passed/agreed to in House; status: On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution, as amended Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 344 - 36, 22 Present (Roll no. 838), http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/?&Db=d111&querybd=@FIELD(FLD003+@4((@1(Rep+Ros-Lehtinen++Ileana))+00985))
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