Blood keeps on flowing
USA — Arizona
Though shot in the brain at point-blank range, she survives yet her condition remains critical. U.S. Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords is reported from University Medical Center in Tucson to have been “removed from a ventilator and is breathing on her own through a tube inserted into her windpipe.”
AFGHANISTAN
Foreign troops estimated at 140,000, two-thirds of them United States
Violence is at its worst since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government. Violence is spreading rapidly in previously peaceful areas like the north. Civilian and military casualties are at record levels.
Six women, two men and the child died today when a roadside bomb exploded in northern Afghanistan. The people were travelling to a wedding. “It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blast.”
At least eight Afghan security personnel died and 27 suffered wounds Wednesday when a suicide bomb on a motorbike exploded near the parliament building in Kabul. Three police officers died last week when a suicide bomb exploded in a southern Kandahar province. Earlier this month at least 16 civilians and a police commander died when an attack occurred in a public bathhouse in the Spin Boldak area near the Pakistan border.
“The attacks come after the end of the bloodiest year of a war that has now dragged on for more than nine years.” United Nations reports say 2,412 civilians died and 3,803 suffered wounds between January and October of 2010, which amounts to a 20 percent increase over 2009.
ADDENDUM to my January 14 blog entry
“An insidious phenomenon”
From Democracy Now Headlines Wednesday, January 12, 2011 http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/12/headlines#8“Study: U.S.-Led Military Operations Cause $100 million in Damages in Afghan Province — “StudyA new Afghan government study shows U.S.-led military operations have caused more than $100 million in damages to homes and fruit crops in southern Kandahar province. Tens of thousands of troops have launched a series of offensives in Kandahar over the past year. In a statement, Afghan presidential adviser Mohammad Sadiq said the so-called ‘Hope’ military operation ‘has inflicted severe damage to the people.’”
PAKISTAN
Three thousand U.S. and NATO supply trucks (on average) operate in Pakistan on any given day. Three years ago, 80 percent of non-lethal supplies moved through Pakistan; last year that figure dropped to 40 percent [U.S. embassy in Islamabad]
Fourteen vehicles were set fire Saturday while at a roadside restaurant in southwestern Pakistan. The tankers were carrying fuel for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Three police officers died and five suffered wounds Thursday when a remote-controlled bomb destroyed a vehicle carrying police and paramilitary forces in the Bannu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Another officer died the same day and four suffered wounds when a bomb struck a checkpoint operated by tribal police in Bara, a town near the northwestern city of Peshawar, Pakistan. On Wednesday, 17 people died and 13 people suffered wounds when a suicide bomb exploded at the Miryan town police station in Bannu.
North Waziristan for two years has been the site of “scores of U.S. drone-missile attacks targeting suspected Taliban fighters.”
IRAN
U.S.-led world powers “want Tehran to stop uranium enrichment, which they suspect is aimed at making weapons. Iran says its nuclear activities are entirely for peaceful purposes. The dispute will be at the center of talks between Tehran and six world powers (Britain, China, France, the Russian Federation, the United States and Germany) scheduled this week in Istanbul, Turkey.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran on Saturday opened two of its atomic sites to foreign diplomats. Among them were representatives of some member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA is the UN atomic watchdog. Today foreign diplomats are touring a plant where Iran is “enriching uranium in defiance of UN sanctions, a day after Tehran declared it will push ahead with the controversial work ‘very strongly.’”
Wire services and the Netherlands press note that such visits to Iran’s atomic sites are infrequent. “The last trip Tehran arranged for members of the IAEA was in February 2007.”
Participating in Sunday’s tour are “representatives of the Non-Aligned Movement troika, the Group of 77, the Arab League, Syria, Venezuela and Oman….” The European Union, Russia and China “snubbed” the event. “Iran did not invite the United States, Britain, France and Germany.”
IRAQ
Two U.S. soldiers (and a trainee) died and one suffered wounds Saturday at a U.S. base in the northern city of Mosul. The shootings occurred at a training center in which U.S. forces were conducting a training exercise. After U.S. soldiers were shot, U.S. soldiers conducting the training session shot the shooter. “The account of the shooting differed slightly [between] U.S. and Iraqi sources.”Another U.S. soldier died Saturday in “an unrelated military operation in central Iraq.”
Independent website www.icasualties.org reports, “The death toll was the highest in a single day for American forces since July 2, 2010, when three soldiers died in separate ‘non-hostile’ incidents.”
An estimated 50,000 troops remain stationed in Iraq. A majority of U.S. troops are “confined to bases where they help train Iraqi security forces.”
MIDDLE EAST - PALESTINE
Israeli military radio reported Sunday “A massive new construction project in a district of annexed East Jerusalem where there are already Jewish settlements is about to be authorized, with 1,400 homes planned.”
“Two South African groups have launched a move to get an arrest warrant issued against the chairperson of Israel’s Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, during [her] visit to the country next week.”
The Media Review Network (MRN) and the Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) allege, according to Haaretz.com, quoting Channel 10 [and South African media], “Livni committed war crimes in her role in Israel’s three-week war on Gaza in late 2008-2009. Livni was then foreign minister in the government of Ehud Olmert.”
A British court in December of 2009 reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Livni on similar charges but later withdrew it after discovering she was not in the country. Livni had been scheduled to travel to London for an event organized by the Jewish National Fund, followed by meetings with British government officials; but she cancelled the trip two weeks before the event. Israeli media said she called off the visit for fear of being arrested.
YEMEN
U.S. Secretary of State visited last week.
Three soldiers died and another suffered wounds Saturday (January 8) when local tribesmen (six of them suffered wounds) attacked an army check post. Residents in the southern province of Lahaj had opened fire on the army post because they were unhappy with the government’s decision to deploy troops in the area.
Also on that Saturday, eight soldiers suffered wounds in the city of Lawdar when their vehicle came under attack. Nine soldiers died on Friday the 7th. The U.S. President condemned Saturday’s attacks by “suspected al Qaeda” on Yemeni soldiers and offered U.S. support in another war.
Casualty sites reporting January 16, 2011
(accurate totals unknown)
U.S.-led WAR DEAD
U.S.-led WAR DEAD
Anti-war dot com
Latest update on this site: January 16, 2011
Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003
[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 207]
Wounded 32,963-100,000
U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000
Suicides estimated: 18 a day
Iraq Body Count
(Documented civilian deaths from violence) figures:
99,357 – 108,475
ICasualties
figures:
IRAQ: 4,435 U.S., 4,753 Coalition
AFGHANISTAN: 1,460 U.S., 2,299 Coalition
Sources and notes
“Wounded U.S. lawmaker breathing without ventilator” (© ANP/AFP), January 16, 2011, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/wounded-us-lawmaker-breathing-without-ventilator
“Nine killed by Afghan bomb en route to wedding” (© ANP/AFP), January 16, 2011, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/nine-killed-afghan-bomb-en-route-wedding
“Deaths in Afghan roadside blast — A car carrying nine people, including a child, destroyed by bomb that killed all its occupants in country’s northeast,” January 16, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/201111611526976374.html
“Suicide blast kills Afghan officers — Bomber on a motorbike struck a minibus full of intelligence officials, killing at least eight and wounding nearly 30.” January 12, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/2011112524854151.html
“NATO lorries torched in Pakistan — Pakistani Taliban target tankers supplying conflict across the border in Afghanistan,” January 15, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/201111517248680630.html
“Police targeted in Pakistan blasts — four officers dead in two attacks in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa region, a day after deaths of 17 people in bombing, January 13, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/20111139533784926.html
“Foreign envoys to tour Iran uranium plant” (© ANP/AFP), January 16, 2011, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/iran-opens-enrichment-plant-foreign-envoys
“Iraqi soldier shoots dead U.S. troops — Two US troops killed and one injured after man opens fire during training exercise at a base in Mosul, January 15, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/2011115175756791495.html
“Massive new settlement project in E. Jerusalem: radio” (© ANP/AFP), January 16, 2011, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/israel-eyes-huge-east-jerusalem-settlement-project
“S Africa groups seek Livni arrest — Pro-Palestinian groups seek arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, who heads Israel’s Kadima party, for alleged war crimes,” January 16, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/20111164466517708.html
“Yemen separatists kill soldiers — Southern secessionists in Lahaj kill at least three in an attack on army checkpoint, the latest in a wave of violence,” January 9, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011196914838812.html
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