The present-day U.S. military qualifies by any measure as highly professional, much more so than its Cold War predecessor. Yet the purpose of today’s professionals is not to preserve peace but to fight unending wars in distant places. Intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. forces have destroyed many targets and killed many people. Only rarely, however, have they succeeded in accomplishing their assigned political purposes. . . . [F]rom our present vantage point, it becomes apparent that the “Revolution of ‘89” did not initiate a new era of history. At most, the events of that year fostered various unhelpful illusions that impeded our capacity to recognize and respond to the forces of change that actually matter.

Andrew Bacevich


Friday, May 18, 2007

Security Incidents for Friday, May 18, 2007

While conducting combat operations two MND-B Soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in separate attacks in the southern section of the Iraqi capital May 17. Three Soldiers have been returned to duty.

Three Task Force Lightning Soldiers were killed in Diyala Province, Friday when an explosion occurred near their vehicle.


Baghdad:
#1: Two Iraqi journalists working for ABC News were ambushed and killed as they drove home from work, the television network announced Friday. The attack took place Thursday afternoon when unknown assailants attacked the car carrying cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, from the network's Baghdad bureau, ABC News President David Westin said in a statement posted on the ABC News Web site.

#2: While conducting combat operations two MND-B Soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in separate attacks in the southern section of the Iraqi capital May 17. Three Soldiers have been returned to duty.

#3: Gunmen attacked an Iraqi army check point killing one soldier this morning in Abu Ghreib (west Baghdad).

#4: Around 11 a.m. an IED exploded in Al Hurriyah neighborhood targeting an American convoy after the blast the convoy started to shoot killing 2 and injuring 6, Iraqi police said.

#5: Around 5 p.m. Gunmen attacked an Iraqi police convoy on Baghdad airport road killing one policeman.

#6: Around 7 p.m. a parking car bomb exploded in Al Tobchi neighborhood near the traffic dept. building and in front a soccer field. The blast killed 2 civilians and injured 5 mostly from the soccer field.

#7: Police found 25 dead bodies in Baghdad. The following is the number of dead bodies per neighborhood: 2 in Ghazaliyah, 3 in Jamiaa, 4 in Doura, 4 in Amil, 4 in Bayaa, 2 Shurta Rabiaa, 1 in Salhiya, 2 in Jihad and 1 in Sadr.


Diyala Prv:
#1: About 50 suspected insurgents attacked a coalition base in the center of a northern Iraqi city Friday, sparking a battle with U.S. soldiers and helicopters that killed at least six militants, the Iraqi army said. At 7 a.m. Friday, the day of rest in mostly Muslim Iraq , about 50 suspected insurgents opened fire on a U.S.-Iraqi base in downtown Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, wounding two Iraqi soldiers, an Iraqi army officer said. Residents said the fighting sent smoke billowing up from neighborhoods in the area.

#2: Two bodies of Iraqi parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani's cousin and bodyguard were found in Diala province, a media source from the parliament said on Friday.

#3: Gunmen attacked an Iraqi police patrol in Al Wajihiya town. One police officer, captain, was killed and 2 policemen were injured.

#4: The morgue of Diyala hospital in Baqouba received today 15 dead bodies. 9 dead bodies were found today and the other 6 were in Al Khalis hospital morgue.

#5: Mortar shelling on Abu Dhaba village. One resident was killed and 5 were injured including children.

#6: A joint force of Iraqi-U.S. troops killed four armed men at a fake checkpoint in Diala province, a police source said on Friday. "An Iraqi-U.S. force shot and killed four gunmen this afternoon while positioning a fake checkpoint to kidnap civilians from the highway linking Baghdad to northern Kirkuk in al-Adhim region, north of Khalis," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

#7: Three Task Force Lightning Soldiers were killed in Diyala Province, Friday when an explosion occurred near their vehicle.


Jurf al-Sakhar:
#1: In other violence Friday, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a police patrol in the Sunni-dominated town of Jurf al-Sakhar, 40 miles south of Baghdad, killing three officers and wounding two, police said.


Suweira:
#1: Five unidentified bodies, including one of a 12-year-old child, were salvaged from the rivers Tigris and al-Dujaila, the Iraqi police in Wassit province said on Friday. "Three of those bodies were salvaged on Friday from the river Tigris, north of the town of al-Suweira, and another one had been retrieved on Thursday from the same river near the town of al-Aziziya," a security source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq


Hawija:
#1: Another device, the same source added, went off near a civilian vehicle in al-Huweija district, 70 km southwest of Kirkuk, wounding four civilians.


Mosul:
#1: Three truck drivers were killed on Thursday after they were attacked on a road between the northern city of Mosul and Kirkuk, police said on Friday.


Kirkuk:
#1: A Kurdish peshmerga soldier was killed in the volatile city of Kirkuk on Friday, police said

#2: Meanwhile, a source in the Kirkuk joint operations room told VOI that an explosive charge "went off on Friday morning near a Kirkuk police emergency patrol in Sahat al-Ihtifalat area, south of the city, wounding one civilian."

#3: "An explosive device went off yesterday evening near the house of a civilian in southern Kirkuk, wounding three civilians, including an engineer in the North Oil Company," a security source in the Kirkuk police told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

#4: Unidentified gunmen killed an Iraqi officer of the al-Sulaymaniya Brigade in northern Kirkuk, an official Iraqi police source said.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: A suicide bomber detonated a car rigged with explosives near a U.S. vehicle convoy on Friday in Falluja city, 45 km west of Baghdad, a police source said. "A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb this afternoon near a U.S. military convoy in al-Dubbat neighborhood in central Falluja," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The blast destroyed a U.S. vehicle," he added. The source voiced belief that the explosion left casualties among U.S. troops. No word was available from the U.S. army on the incident.


Afghanistan:
#1: Suspected pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal belt shot dead an Afghan man accused of spying for United States forces operating in neighbouring Afghanistan, officials said on Friday. The body of 50-year-old Saidur Rehman was found dumped in a ditch near the bazaar of the border town of Lwara Mandi in the lawless district of North Waziristan, a security official told AFP. "Militants sliced off flesh from his thigh first, and then shot him dead," the official said, requesting anonymity. They left a note near his body claiming that he was an American spy. The note said Rehman, an Afghan national, was captured in the remote town three days ago, carrying a satellite phone and an instrument apparently to guide jets for bombings.

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