Democracies like these threaten world

Year 11
U.S. War on Afghanistan

Allies with tyrants, commits endless war on inhabitants: United States persists in violence, impedes nonviolence, diplomacy

News re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Allied in violence: Middle East-Horn of Africa

Press TV reports

Middle East

Palestinians under siege 

JUNE 22-23

PALESTINE

U.S.-allied Israel against Palestinians

An Israeli airstrike hit al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Friday leaving a six-year-old Palestinian child dead and two others wounded. The Gaza Strip is blockaded by Tel Aviv.

JUNE 22

Gaza

The casualty count of Palestinians killed in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes in the past five days has rose to nine and was still rising on Saturday. On Wednesday, an Israeli drone attack hit the Gaza City’s Zaitoun neighborhood killing a child.

“Gaza has been under Israeli siege since 2007, causing a decline in the [Gazans’] standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty. Last week, fifty international aid groups and UN agencies urged Tel Aviv to open borders of Gaza, saying the blockade has harmed Gazans.”

Press reports say, “Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip [and claims these] actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.”

JUNE 20

This was day three of Israel’s nonstop warplane and assassination drone attacks on the people of the Gaza Strip. At this point, the number of Palestinian casualties had risen to eight dead, seven wounded.

Palestinian Flag

More than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, died in an earlier Israeli offensive that began on December 27, 2008, and lasted 22 days. In addition to the dead, thousands of Gazans were injured, hundreds of homes were destroyed, a large swath of Gaza’s infrastructure was devastated, and thousands of people were thrown further into poverty.

Four years later, Israel’s continuing unchecked blockade on 1.5-million people and its constant ground and air assaults on them portend no end to the torment of a suffering people.

  

SYRIA

 

JUNE 23

U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia against Syrians

The Saudi princes are reportedly paying the salaries of “the terrorist Free Syrian Army amid ongoing attacks carried out by armed groups inside Syria.”

Sourcing a June 22 Guardian (UK) story, “Saudi authorities will pay the armed rebels to encourage ‘mass defections from the military and… pressure’ the Damascus government.”

JUNE 22

A political analyst reported by Press TV has said the United States [as in Iraq, Libya] “aims to change the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”

Quoting a Beirut-based international lawyer, Franklin Lamb, the report said “‘the goal is nothing less than regime change.’”

Iran warned that foreign interference in Syria and the flow of weapons to the country’s armed gangs will further escalate the months-long crisis in Syria.

“Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the Rio+20 Earth Summit in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that such measures will only increase bloodshed, hatred and hostilities in Syria.”

JUNE 21

Several sources said this week that Britain and the United States “have begun efforts to openly derail the UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point plan for ending the violence in Syria.” They are reportedly “pressuring Annan to change plans and seek ouster of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.”

Baghdad

JUNE 22

IRAQ

U.S.-occupied, War’s not over

Twin bomb attacks hit Baghdad on Friday morning leaving an estimated 17 people dead. Among the dead were three police officers; more than a hundred people suffered injuries in Iraq’s capital city.

The assault hit a northeast Baghdad neighborhood’s open-air market.

JUNE 22

Bahrainis protest

BAHRAIN

U.S.-doubly allied with despotic

Against people’s protest for change

Anti-government protesters in the capital, Manama, came under attack by Saudi-backed Bahraini forces.

Regime forces’ tear gas, sound bombs, rubber bullets and birdshot injured several peaceful demonstrators, including three senior opposition leaders, on Friday in the capital’s Bilad al-Qadeem area.

Asia

Afghanistan

JUNE 22-23

AFGHANISTAN

U.S. war allied against people

Today a bomb explosion at a music market in Afghanistan’s eastern city of Jalalabad left two people dead and two injured. Yesterday an explosion in a Kabul hotel left nineteen people dead. A U.S. NATO soldier also died, according to Press TV reports.

“Taliban-linked violence” is said to be “taking a large toll on the Western military alliance.”

Pakistan

JUNE 23

PAKISTAN

U.S. war allied against people

Eight people (est.) from central Punjab Province died and another person suffered wounds when “unknown” shooters opened fire “in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern Balochistan Province.”

The shooters were reportedly on motorcycles when they “sprayed bullets into a laundry in a busy area of Quetta city, the capital of Baochistan Province.

JUNE 23

KOREA SOUTH

U.S. provocation

The United States with South Korea today began massive joint naval drills in the Yellow Sea amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Involved in this three-day provocation are ten South Korean warships and submarines along with the USS George Washington, a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

Africa

JUNE 22

Drones on Somalia

SOMALIA

U.S. allied against Somalis

Thirty-nine people (est.) died and dozens suffered injuries yesterday when two U.S. assassination drones hit Somalia.

Somalia, Horn of Africa
Middle East
Persia

The illegal, extrajudicial, cold-blooded assassination attacks had reportedly targeted an al-Shabab training base on the outskirts of Somalia’s densely populated capital, Mogadishu.

  

Sources and notes

News reports on U.S. hostilities in Middle East, http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510202.html

News reports on U.S. hostilities in Asia, http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510204.html

News reports on Africa (U.S. drones), http://www.presstv.ir/section/3510205.html

Press TV photos; Worldatlas maps
________________________________________
Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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How much to end world hunger, disease, suffering?

August 2011
Newly arrived Somali women sit in a queue
outside a food distribution center

$70,000,000 a Quarter
By Carolyn Bennett

They took in $42.8 million for their incumbent candidate, $27.3 million for their party • 606,027 people totaled 766,000 donations

Third quarter of this year people made a 70 million dollar down payment on corrupt elections and empty promises —

Supporting global wars

August 2011 Somali refugees wait outside
the registration area of the
Dagahaley refugee camp

“The United States is creating a base in ETHIOPIA,” Africa News reported late last month, “to coordinate and fly drones over the Horn of Africa countries, especially SOMALIA.

“The drones known as MQ-9 Reaper based in Seychelles can supplement air strikes on targets inside the war torn Somalia. The U.S. military has had a base for years in DJIBOUTI.”

The Australian reported today, “KENYA hunted al Shabab ‘militants’ deep inside Somalia, claiming self-defense for an unprecedented incursion which the Somali insurgents warned would trigger reprisals in the heart of Nairobi.

“Backed by aerial bombings and guided by pro-government Somali forces, Kenyan troops moved deeper into southern Somalia, a day after Nairobi declared war on the al Shabab militia and confirmed that it had sent its army across the border.”

Horn of Africa

In the Horn of Africa today, “more than 13 million people are affected by one of the region’s worst droughts in 60 years.”

The crisis in Somalia alone has already killed tens of thousands of people, put 750,000 more at risk of death in the next few months, and affected four million others.

On October 17, 2011, World Food Day, the United Nations and international figures called for immediate aid and longer-term solutions and warned that factors such as price swings and gender discrimination keep hundreds of millions mired in hunger.

These are the suffering people the United States bombs, in a region the nuclear-armed U.S. and its proxies continuously destabilize — while shamelessly wasting millions on a discredited system, a farce in political campaigning and electoral processes.

Somalia

Displaced woman from Somalia
sits with her malnourished child
at Banadir hospital

Since the fall of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, years of fighting between rival warlords combined with frequent drought and rampant inflation have turned Somalia into one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, says the United Nations.

“A bloodied ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Somalia in 1993 embarrassed U.S. military might” and, for a while, led to “a period of more cautious overseas engagement by Washington” says a country profile of Somalia at AlertNet.

Somalia today is viewed as the world’s most corrupt state, and it “remains of deep concern to the West as rises the star of the al-Shabab (‘The Youth’) Islamist group, which in 2010 declared allegiance to al-Qaeda and is strong enough to threaten Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.”

Since 2007, huge numbers of Somalis have been displaced within the country. Over the past two decades, famine, fighting and drought have left hundreds of thousands of Somalis dead.

Horn in emergency

Though Somalia’s two biggest neighbors, Kenya and Ethiopia, have helped promote peace efforts, they have also interfered militarily.

Start of Ramadan fast
A displaced woman from Somalia
stands with her malnourished child

The United States is at war with the peoples of at least eleven countries.

Somali woman and her severely malnourished child
wait for medical assistance

Sources and notes

“Maximizing the incumbent advantage — President Barack Obama continues to be a fund-raising juggernaut, practically exceeding the fund-raising total of the entire GOP field combined. During the third quarter, Obama raised $70.1 million, his campaign announced today. That sum includes $42.8 million that went directly into his own campaign war chest and $27.3 million raised for the Democratic National Committee,” Center for

Somali child all but dead
A woman with her child sit
near their makeshift shelter in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Horn of Africa Britannica image

Responsive Politics Open secrets, http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/10/barack-obama-fundraising-juggernaut-

August 2011
Newly arrived Somali men jostle to queue
outside a food distribution center

“The Obama campaign announced in an email this morning that the president’s reelection effort and the Democratic National Committee raised a combined $70 million in the third quarter of the year” (Alexander Burns) October 13, 2011, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65845.html

http://www.africanews.com/site/US_sets_new_drones_base_in_the_Ethiopia/list_messages/39850

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/kenya-hunts-islamist-militants-in-somalia/story-e6frg6so-1226169492814

“Food price swings threaten to push millions more people into hunger, UN warns,” October 17, 2011, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40081&Cr=food+security&Cr1=

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/country-profiles/somalia/

Captions

Reuters

A displaced woman from Somalia stands with her malnourished child. Somalia's famine refugees, weakened by months of drought, on Monday began Islam's punishing Ramadan fast amid the tents and shacks of the world's largest refugee camp

A displaced woman from Somalia sits with her malnourished child at Banadir hospital

AP

A woman with her child sit near their makeshift shelter in Mogadishu, Somalia. Tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somali refugees were cold and drenched after torrential rains overnight pounded their makeshift structures in the capital August 2011

Reuters

Newly arrived Somali women sit in a queue outside a food distribution center August 2011

Newly arrived Somali men jostle to queue outside a food distribution center at the Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab August 2011

(Oli Scarff - AFP/Getty Images)

Somali refugees wait outside the registration area of the Dagahaley refugee camp, which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement on July 23, 2011 in Dadaab, Kenya.

UN

A Somali woman and her severely malnourished child wait for medical assistance from the African Union Mission in Somalia

Maps Britannica

U.S. AT WAR WITH THE PEOPLES of [how many] countries

1.     Afghanistan	2.     Bahrain
3.     Cuba	4.     Djibouti
5.     Haiti	6.     Honduras
7.     Iran	8.     Iraq
9.     Libya	10.  Nigeria
11.  North Korea Pakistan	12.  Palestine
13.  Saudi Arabia	14.  Somalia
15.  Uganda [Possibly South Sudan, CARC and DRC]	16.  Yemen
17.	18.
19.	20.
21.	22.
23.	24.
25.	26.

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire

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WAR DEAD, violence 2011

Killing Fields — U.S. occupation, invasion, blood flow at home and abroad
Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

HOMELAND USA

Three-term U.S. Member of Congress Gabrielle Giffords died today in Tucson, Arizona, “after being shot in the head at point-blank range outside a supermarket.” In the state she represents, Giffords was holding a public event when she was gunned down in cold blood.

Six other people died. During her tenure in office, Congresswoman Giffords focused on immigration reform, military issues, stem cell research and alternative energy.

CORRECTION AND UPDATE Sunday January 9

Daily Mail UK January 9: Congresswoman Giffords “survived, despite the shooters’s bullet passing through her brain.” She is still in a critical condition. “Federal judge John Roll, 63, and Christina Green, a nine-year-old schoolchild, are among the dead. Others who died were Giffords’ aide Gabe Zimmerman, Dorothy Murray, 76, Dorwin Stoddard, 76, and Phyllis Scheck, 79.” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345413/Arizona-shooting-Gabrielle-Giffords-fights-life-judge-schoolgirl-dead.html?ITO=1490

A 22-year-old white male American, Jared Loughner, with an arrest history, is being reported as alleged Tucson shooter. http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20110108/pl_dailycaller/allegedarizgunmanjaredloughnerhadpriorruninswithpolice

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

West Bank
A 67-year-old Palestinian civilian died Friday when Israeli troops in the southern West Bank city of Hebron opened fire on while he was sleeping at home. The dead man’s son, Rajaeh Kawasme, told Agence France Press, “Troops entered the house while his mother was praying and his father was asleep. They had locked her in another room then opened fire on his father in his bed. ‘They murdered him in cold blood with 13 bullets in the head without even checking his identity. After they killed him, they asked for his identity card.’” An AFP correspondent at the scene said “the shooting took place in a bedroom on the building’s first floor [and] the bed was drenched in blood.”

West Bank
The Electronic Intifada reports that although a 2005 Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions urges a complete economic, academic and cultural boycott of Israel — modeled on the one that helped end apartheid in South Africa — until Israel respects and recognizes Palestinian rights and complies with international law, a Palestinian is pushing continued development.

“Bashar Masri, a Palestinian and CEO of the company that is developing the Rawabi luxury real estate project in the occupied West Bank, appears to be actively helping Israel deepen its hold on the Palestinian economy despite his earlier claims that he is trying to help end this relationship.”

Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, says, “Masri as well as other Palestinian business men who promote normalization with Israel seem to be doing all they can to undermine the [boycott, divestment and sanctions] campaign, while making handsome profits along the way.”

West Bank Bil'in — Abu Rahmah Family: three dead and wounded in as many years
Israel’s army in late 2004 ordered construction of the “separation wall.” The wall would annex almost 60 percent of Bil'in's land — mostly agricultural land essential to the villagers and the village’s economy.

The Bil'in Committee of Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements (Bil'in Popular Committee) was formed in February 2005 and the group carried out weekly non-violent demonstrations.

Despite harsh reactions from Israeli military personnel who, among other things, “raided the homes of and arrested protest organizers in the middle of the night, the demonstrations continued.”

The Abu Rahmah siblings, non-violent activists in Bil'in’s Popular Committee, began taking fatal hits from the military.

• Ashraf Abu Rahmah in July 2008 was detained by Israeli soldiers in the nearby village of Ni'lin. The soldiers tied him up, blindfolded him and, as their commander watched, shot him in the foot at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet. The rubber coating of these weapons “is paper-thin and encases a marble-sized steel ball that can break bones or even kill.” The shooting was videotaped “making it impossible for the Israeli military to deny responsibility.” The Israeli Supreme Court handed down a strong indictment against the commander. The soldier who committed the deed was investigated. Two weeks after the investigation, the charges against him were dropped and he resumed Israeli military duty.
• Bassem Abu Rahmah in April 2009 was participating in the weekly protests. An Israeli soldier shot “a high-velocity teargas canister directly at [Bassem’s] chest from a distance of about 40 meters [44 yards]. Many protesters and media had been driven away by the billowing teargas but those still present heard a desperate call for an ambulance. There was no ambulance in the village that day. After a few drawn out minutes, a small beat-up car sped down the road to the spot where Bassem lay. As it approached, the soldiers shot at it with teargas canisters. Bassem’s limp body, his chest covered with blood, was carried to the car and driven 30 minutes to the nearest hospital.
• Jawaher Abu Rahmah died on the eve of 2011 after inhaling teargas that had targeted the Bil'in Committee of Popular Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements’ weekly protest.

CENTRAL SOUTH ASIA and MIDDLE EAST

AFGHANISTAN — Pakistan border
Sixteen (estimated) civilians and a police commander died yesterday and 20 others suffered wounds when a suicide bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province on the border with Pakistan. In separate incidents, three NATO service members died in roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan.

The United Nations reports that 2,412 civilians died and 3,803 suffered wounds between January and October of 2010. These casualties amount to a 20 percent increase over 2009. Seven hundred and eleven (711) foreign troops reportedly died in 2010 compared with 521 in 2009. A total of 1,292 (estimated) Afghan police and 821 Afghan soldiers died in 2010.

PAKISTAN — capital Islamabad
In a popular market district in Islamabad, a place popular with wealthy Pakistanis and expatriates, close to the governor’s home, populated by embassies, frequented by foreigners and considered “fairly safe” — Pakistan’s Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, died. Police said on Tuesday a member of the governor’s security detail had assassinated him. Salman Taseer was a high-profile member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

PAKISTAN — children on a bus
Fifteen children ages eight to 12 suffered wounds Tuesday in southwest Pakistan when a “remote-controlled bomb ripped through a bus carrying children of paramilitary soldiers.” Of the 30 children traveling in a van attacked near Ata Shad Degree College, five suffered critical wounds.

IRAQ — resistance to foreign occupation
The Iraqi Shia Muslim religious leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, “has called on his followers to resist the ‘occupiers’ in Iraq. In his first public address since returning [to Iraq] from self-imposed exile, [Al-Sadr] called on the newly formed government to make sure all U.S. forces leave Iraq by the end of the year as planned.”

Al-Sadr is reported telling a crowd of thousands outside his ancestral home in Najaf on Saturday, “‘We are still resisting the occupation through armed, cultural and all kinds of resistance, so repeat after me: no, no to occupiers.’”


HORN OF AFRICA

SOMALIA — Mercenaries
“Western officials have acknowledged that a number of other private security contractors have begun operating in Somalia.” Somalis are resisting.

Somalia’s interim parliament on Thursday “called on the prime minister to explain a series of contracts given [without consultation] to foreign security firms operating in the country. They also called on Mohamad Abdullah Mohamad to suspend the deals until they can get more information as to what exactly they involve. Somali politicians have accused the prime minister and the president of making secret deals.

UN officials in separate actions have raised questions about whether some of the [mercenary] contractors might be helping organize and arm new pro-government militias, possibly in violation of the UN arms embargo on the country.

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting January 8, 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: 204]

Wounded 32,943-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: January 2, 2011

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count (civilian deaths from violence) figures:

99,341 – 108,457

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties figures:

IRAQ: 4,432 U.S., 4,750 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,449 U.S., 2,290 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources and notes

“U.S. politician killed in Arizona — Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been shot dead, along with six others, while at a community event in Tucson,” January 8, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/01/20111818478375413.html
“Israel army shoots dead elderly Palestinian in bed,” Saturday, January 8, 2011, HEBRON, Palestinian Territories (AFP), http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20110108/twl-israel-palestinians-conflict-westban-4bdc673.html
“Rawabi developer Masri helps deepen Israel's grip on West Bank” (Ali Abunimah), The Electronic Intifada, January 6, 2011, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11717.shtml
Bil'in: A village in mourning, January 7, 2011,
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/20111513358119488.html
“Civilians killed in Afghan blast — Taliban claim attack targeting a police commander inside a public bathhouse in a town close to the Pakistan border,” January 7, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/2011178365522845.html
“Pakistan’s Punjab governor killed — Police say Salman Taseer, an outspoken member of ruling party, was assassinated by an elite guard in capital Islamabad,” January 4 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/201114115730846269.html
“Pakistan bus bomb targets children — More than a dozen children of paramilitary soldiers injured as a remote controlled device hits their school bus,” January 1, 2011,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/01/2011148381326449.html
“Al-Sadr calls on Iraqis ‘to resist’ — Shia leader urges peaceful resistance and a rejection of violence in his first address since returning from exile,” January 8, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/20111872647305497.html
“Somali MPs seek contract inquiry — Prime minister urged to explain deals with security contractors in strife-torn nation,” January 1, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/201111145350763809.html
_____________________________________

Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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U.S. Assaults Taliban, al-Qaeda, Africa to Aden

Path and consequences of aggression
Re-reporting, compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

AFGHANISTAN

Four U.S. soldiers died today when a roadside bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan. The number of foreign soldiers who have died so far in the seven months of this year is estimated to be 396 compared with 520 in the whole of 2009.

In Logar province in eastern Afghanistan, two U.S. soldiers who left their compound in Kabul City in a vehicle on Friday afternoon are reported to have been captured by the Taliban. Of the initial three soldiers captured, one is believed to have died.

Last summer in Paktika province the Taliban captured another U.S. soldier, Bowe Bergdahl. Paktika is close to Logar in eastern Afghanistan.

PAKISTAN

Twelve (estimate) ‘militants’ died today when “a U.S. drone fired four missiles into a Dwasarak village compound, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Wana (South Waziristan district) in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt.”

Since last August 1,000 (estimated) people have died “in more than 100 drone strikes in Pakistan,” attacks which have “fueled anti-American sentiment in the country.… Militants based in the rugged tribal terrain attack US-led forces across the border in Afghanistan, where the Afghan Taliban are waging a nearly nine-year insurgency to evict the more than 140,000 foreign troops.”

In separate incidents on Saturday, a police officer died and four others suffered wounds when “suspected militants armed with guns and grenades attacked two police stations in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore.”

Eight million people live in Lahore, which sits close to the Pakistan/India border, the site of increasing “Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked attacks in a three-year nationwide bombing campaign” that has left more than 3,500 people dead.

WEST AFRICA ─ NIGERIA

The one-year anniversary of the Nigerian Taliban uprising nears. Nigerians are scared and authorities are cracking down. The uprising last year began on July 26 and spread to four states but centered in Maiduguri, Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north. When the four-day uprising ended, the military and police had launched an assault that left 800 people dead. The police were accused of the massacre and of killing the up-risers’ leader, Mohammed Yusuf.

Members of the Nigerian Taliban are reportedly recruits who have dropped out of university studies, are unemployed youth, or are people “seeking to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state.” Of the continent’s 150 million people, an estimated 75 million (one half) are Muslim. The Nigerian Taliban also calls itself ‘Boko Haram.’ In the local dialect, the words mean ‘Western education is sin.’

AFRICA’S HORN - Middle East/Southwest Asia

At a rugby club and a restaurant on July 11, seventy-four people died when two bombs exploded in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Somalia’s al-Shabab group took responsibility saying the attacks were in response to the deaths of Somali civilians at the hands of AU (African Union) “peacekeepers.” The U.S. has branded al-Shabab an ally of “al-Qaeda.” The group is warning of more violence in Uganda and Burundi unless UN troops pull out of Somalia.

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting

July 24-25, 2010 (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: 185]

Wounded 31,888-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides 18 a day

Latest update on this site July 2

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count figures

97,110 – 105,956

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,413 U.S., 4,731 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,206 U.S., 1,966 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources and notes

Nigeria
Federal Republic of Nigeria, an area of 356,669 square miles (923,768 square km), Africa’s most populous country, is located on the coast of western Africa. To the north it is bordered by Niger; the east by Chad and Cameroon; the south by the Gulf of Guinea; and to the west by Benin.

Nigeria has abundant natural resources ─ notably large deposits of petroleum and natural gas. [Britannica]

Somalia
Somali (Soomaaliya, Arabic As-Sūmāl) sits on the Horn of Africa, occupying an important geopolitical position between sub-Saharan Africa and the countries of Arabia and southwestern Asia. On its north Somalia is bounded by the Gulf of Aden; on the east by the Indian Ocean; from its southern point, its western border is bounded by Kenya and Ethiopia; and, to the northwest by Djibouti. Land divided by the colonialists still form the roots of conflict among Horn and Eastern African nations and peoples. Somalis are Muslim and about half follow a mobile way of life, pursuing nomadic pastoralism or agropastoralism. They are “an egalitarian, freedom-loving people, suspicious of governmental authority.”

Exploitable oil and natural gas have not yet been found in Somalia but its deposits of the clay mineral sepiolite in south-central Somalia are among the largest known reserves in the world. Sea salt is collected at several sites on the coast. Somalia’s most valuable resources are the natural pastures that cover most of the country. Another resource scarcely exploited is the abundant fish life in the coastal waters, still unpolluted by industrial waste. A potential source of hydroelectricity is the Jubba River. [Britannica]

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