Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett
HOMELAND USA
U.S. soldiers
Free Speech Radio News last week reported a 25 percent increase in suicides in the United States military. “Military suicides continue to reach record levels. According to the Defense Department, 343 soldiers, Army civilians, and family members committed suicide in 2010,” a 25 percent rise compared with 2009 figures.
Detroit shooting
A shooter walked into a Detroit police station Sunday and opened fire wounding Sgt. Carrie Schulz, Commander Brian Davis, Sgt. Ray Saati and Officer David Anderson. The shooter was then shot dead. According to the Detroit Free Press, “Sunday’s shooting was not the first time a gunman has attacked Detroit police on their own turf.”
St. Petersburg shootings
Two police officers died and a U.S. Marshal suffered wounds today during a shootout with a man in St. Petersburg, Florida. Miami today buried two Miami-Dade County police officers shot and killed last week by a “fugitive murder suspect” [also killed].
U.S. detainees
The American Civil Liberties Union has released new documents showing widespread abuse and unjustified homicide of detainees at U.S.-run jails in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. The records show autopsy reports revealing that many detainees who had died “from interrogation” had “injuries to their bodies.… In at least one case a person was frozen to death when he was held naked outside (Afghanistan is a cold place) and cold water was put on him.”
One hundred and ninety (190) detainee deaths have been detailed in the records. The recently available information results from an ACLU lawsuit against the U.S. military under the Freedom of Information Act.
SOUTHWEST ASIA – MIDDLE EAST
AFGHANISTAN
Two Taliban leaders died Friday in eastern Afghanistan. “The international military alliance” is reported saying “its forces killed the Taliban shadow administrator for Nangarhar province’s Hisarak district in a strike last Friday [and] a Taliban operative in Logar province’s Pul-e-Alam district in a strike on Sunday.
NATO had previously announced the strike but said they were unsure if Maulawi Anwar had been killed; about the Sunday’s killing, the coalition said the man killed, Abdul Bari, helped Taliban leaders get weapons and vehicles.
AFGHANISTAN
Twenty civilians died (among them six women, 13 children) Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded in southeastern Afghanistan. These deaths bring the four-day total to 28 Afghan civilians killed in three roadside bombings.
Three days before the Wednesday bombings, nine civilians (including six women, two men and a child) died when a roadside bomb exploded in northern Afghanistan. These civilians had been travelling to a wedding on a road often used by foreign forces. “Afghan officials say that last year 2,043 civilians died as a result of Taliban attacks and military operations targeting the fighters.”
PAKISTAN
“Thousands of people have rallied in northwestern Pakistan to protest ongoing U.S. drone attacks that killed scores of civilians. On Sunday, demonstrators in the city of Peshawar blocked a main road and held a vigil to mourn drone attack victims. According to Agence France-Presse, U.S. drone attacks doubled in the North Waziristan region last year, with over 100 drone strikes killing more than 670 people. At least 13 people were killed in three recent attacks.”
PAKISTAN
Two “suspected foreign fighters” died in U.S. drone strikes on Sunday in northwestern Pakistan. “Sunday’s attack came several hours after a drone fired two missiles at a vehicle and a house in Doga Mada Khel village, located near North Waziristan's main town of Miranshah, killing at least five armed fighters. A similar strike killed at least three people in North Waziristan on January 12. A string of attacks killed at least 15 people and destroyed a Taliban compound on January 1.
A tally conducted by the AFP news agency shows “the covert campaign doubled missile attacks in the tribal area last year. “More than 100 drone strikes killed over 670 people in 2010 compared with 45 strikes that killed 420 in 2009.”
IRAQ
Twelve people died and 150 suffered wounds Monday when car bombs exploded near Iraq’s shrine city of Karbala. Pilgrims were involved in religious rituals. A home-made bomb killed Brigadier General Thamer Hassan Saleh who worked for services linked to the office of Iraq’s prime ministers.
Also on Monday two anti-Qaeda militiamen in the northern city of Kirkuk and a military officer in Baghdad died and a military officer and two guards, an intelligence official and eight civilians suffered wounds when shooters open fire or roadside bombs exploded.
The past week saw “a surge of violence in Iraq… which included suicide bombs, blasts killing around 130 people and wounding scores more.” In the whole of December, Agence France Presse reports, “a total of 151 people were killed.”
U.S.-led WAR DEAD
Casualty sites reporting January 24, 2011
(accurate totals unknown)
• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003
[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 207]
Wounded 32,965-100,000
U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000
Suicides estimated: 18 a day
Latest update on this site: January 17, 2011
• Iraq Body Count (civilian deaths from violence) figures:
‘We don’t do body counts’— General Tommy Franks
Documented civilian deaths from violence
99,393 – 108,514
• ICasualties figures:
IRAQ: 4,436 U.S.; 4,754 Coalition
AFGHANISTAN: 1,466 U.S.; 2,308 Coalition
Sources and notes
“4 Detroit police officers shot, gunman dead in ‘horrifying’ attack” (also “Detroit police ID gunman who shot four officers”), January 24, 2011, http://www.freep.com/article/20110124/NEWS05/101240382/4-Detroit-police-officers-shot-gunman-dead-in-horrifying-attack
http://www.freep.com/article/20110124/NEWS01/110124019/1318/Detroit-police-ID-gunman-who-shot-four-officers
“Two police killed in St. Petersburg, Florida, ST. PETERSBURG, Florida” (Reuters), January 22, 2011, http://newas.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110124/us_nm/us_florida_shooting_3
“U.S. interrogators on killing spree” (Interview with Paul Wolf, Human rights and international lawyer in Washington), January 23, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161603.html
“NATO: 2 Taliban leaders killed in east Afghanistan,” KABUL, Afghanistan January 24, 2011,
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20110123/twl-as-afghanistan-38359fb.html
“Afghan civilians killed in blast — an improvised explosive device explodes as a rickshaw passes over it, killing women and children,” January 19, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/20111199305332564.html
4436 179 139 4754
“Thousands Protest U.S. Drone Strikes in Pakistan,” Democracy Now January 24, 2011,
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/24/headlines
“‘US drone strikes’ claim lives — The attacks are the first since Friday’s protest rally in Pakistan condemning civilian deaths in U.S. drone strikes, January 24, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/201112335951391718.html
“Triple attacks on Shiite pilgrims in Iraq kill 12” (KARBALA, Iraq, AFP), January 24, 2011, http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20110124/twl-iraq-unrest-575b600.html
“Thousands demonstrate against U.S. drone strikes,” PESHAWAR (Xinhua) Tehran Times, January 22, 2011, http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=234534
“Death toll in Iraq bombing rises to 56 — Ayatollah Sistani criticizes Iraqi security forces”
(BAGHDAD, AP, http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=234520
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