contrapositive

Afghanistan and Iraq have been transformed from terrorist states into allies in the war on terror.

"Our government is weak," said Fowzea Olomi, a local women's rights advocate whose driver was shot dead in May and who fears she is next. "Anarchy has come."

When the Taliban fell nearly five years ago, Lashkar Gah seemed like fertile ground for the United States-led effort to stabilize the country...

Today, [Lashkar Gah] is the epicenter of a Taliban resurgence and an explosion in drug cultivation that has claimed the lives of 106 American and NATO soldiers this year and doubled American casualty rates countrywide. Across Afghanistan, roadside bomb attacks are up by 30 percent; suicide bombings have doubled. Statistically it is now nearly as dangerous to serve as an American soldier in Afghanistan as it is in Iraq.

Following are security and other developments in Iraq reported on Monday, as of 2000 GMT:

MUQDADIYA - U.S. troops killed five men in a ground assault and air strike on what they called a "safe house", targeting a person involved in moving money and foreign fighters into Iraq. A child was also killed in the fighting in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. It said the operation freed two men who had been held hostage.

TAJI - Two bodyguards of a Sunni Arab member of Iraq's parliament, Falah Zaidan, were shot dead in Taji, just north of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said. Zaidan and his party were not immediately available for comment.

TIKRIT - A U.S. soldier was killed after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. military said on Monday.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Monday.

BASRA - Two British soldiers were killed and one seriously wounded when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb north of the southern city of Basra, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 33 men, some with their hands bound and bearing signs of torture, were found across the capital, an Interior Ministry source said. All had been shot.

ANBAR PROVINCE - Two U.S. Marines were killed in action on Sunday in Iraq's Anbar province, the U.S. military said in a statement.

NEAR RAMADI - Major General Mohammed al-Fahdawi, a former commander of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, was killed in a drive-by shooting on Sunday in an area just east of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, a relative and a hospital source said. He was the third high-ranking officer from Saddam's military to be killed in a week.

NEAR KUT - The bodies of two men with multiple gunshot wounds to the head were found on a road between Amara and Kut, south of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Ghanim Khudheyir, 22, striker at the Iraqi Air Force soccer club, was snatched from his home on Thursday by plainclothes gunmen who claimed to be from the Interior Ministry intelligence service, team manager Mohammed Rasoul said. Police offered a different account, saying the kidnapping occurred on Sunday and was carried out by men in camouflage uniforms.

ABU GHRAIB - Two car bombs exploded in quick succession on Sunday at an Iraqi army checkpoint on a road that links Abu Ghraib and Baghdad, killing or wounding seven Iraqi soldiers and destroying one military vehicle, Falluja policeman Ammar Abd said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded near al-Wathiq intersection in Karrada district, central Baghdad, wounding two people, including one policeman, an Interior Ministry source said.

// posted by Contrapositive @ 11:06 PM |