Afghanistan
Senate report explores 2001 escape by bin Laden from Afghan mountains
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Caucasus
Russia claims it has won peace, but Chechen terrorism is defiantly back
Libya
Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed alMegrahi linked to Libya™s chemical weapons
Al Qaeda
Gordon Brown demands Pakistan ‘take out’ bin Laden
Switzerland
Swiss ban mosque minarets in surprise vote
Afghanistan
US aircraft killed 26 Haqqani Network fighters in Khost province. Afghan police killed two Taliban fighters in Faryab province. Afghan and Coalition forces killed one Taliban fighter and detained several more in Wardak and Kandahar provinces. The top German commander in RC-North returned to Germany for “medical treatment.”
Somalia
Pirates attacked a Spanish fishing vessel but private security guards aboard the ship drove them off with gunfire. Puntland Marines have joined the pirates, said Puntland former president Ade Muse Hershe. The top leader of Shabaab, Sheikh Mukhtar Abdirahman Abu Zubeyr, vowed more fighting against Somali government and AMISOM troops. Two clerics were killed by […]
Coalition casualty map masks wider picture of Afghan insurgency
The National Post printed a good graphic on Coalition casualties, by province, throughout Afghanistan, as well as some attack statistics. Some items of note: IED deaths, at more than 250, have increased by more than five times since 2006. The US, Canada, and Britain are shouldering the brunt of the casualties; 84.7% of the deaths […]
Iran
President Ahmedinejad announced Iran will build 10 new nuclear sites to enrich uranium. A top Iranian lawmaker said the country will not give up its “inalienable and legal right” to nuclear power. The parliament called for decreased cooperation with the IAEA.
US airstrikes kill 26 Haqqani Network fighters in eastern Afghanistan
Afghan border police called for help after a border police center came under attack in Khost.
Pakistan
Pakistan™s leader, under pressure, cedes nuclear office
Afghanistan
US soldiers: Afghan war more challenging than Iraq
Afghanistan
Afghan talks to seek road to security handover
Somalia
Navy releases Somali pirates caught red-handed
United Kingdom
Cuts ground special forces™ helicopters
Afghanistan
Afghans offer jobs to Taliban rank and file if they defect
Somalia
Shabaab seized control of Dhobley, a town near the Kenyan border, with battle wagons and a heavily-armed militia, sending civilians fleeing towards the neighboring country. African Union peacekeeping troops have for the first time revealed that the AU has lost 80 of its soldiers in explosions and gun battles with insurgents since deployment to Somalia […]
Iran
Ahmad Khatami, a senior cleric, said Iran will produce its own nuclear fuel if the IAEA agreement collapses. Russia said the Bushehr nuclear plant will come online by the end of the year. Russia purportedly agreed to ship the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system.
Russia
Russian officials confirmed a bomb caused the train crash on the Nevsky Express that killed upwards of 39 people and wounded scores more. “Criminal experts say that based on preliminary findings a bomb equivalent to 7kg of TNT was detonated,” the chief of the FSB told Russia’s president.
Afghanistan
Twelve prisoners escaped through a tunnel at a jail in Farah province; Taliban commanders are said to have been among them. A suicide bomber killed three policemen in Farah. The Taliban murdered a Red Crescent leader in Takhar province. Afghan and Coalition forces detained Taliban and Haqqani Network fighters in Logar and Khost, and detained […]
Mali
The French national abducted in Menaka on Wednesday was kidnapped by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The 61-year-old man, identified as Pierre Camatte, was abducted overnight by armed men from his hotel. Camatte was in Mali conducting antimalarial plant research. The French government has recommended that all French nationals leave northern Mali immediately.
Yemen
Al Qaeda murdered a kidnapped Yemeni security official and released a videotape of his ‘confession.’ “I advise people not to get involved in actions (such as mine) … and not to be drawn into working for American intelligence,” the provincial security official said on the videotape.
Lebanon
The Cabinet has granted Hezbollah the right to take up arms against Israel. “[T]he government underscores Lebanon™s right through its people, army and resistance to liberate or regain [authority] of Shebaa Farms, Kfarshouba hills and the occupied part of Ghajar village and defend the country against any aggression,” a Cabinet policy statement reads.
Pakistan
Security forces killed 15 Taliban fighters in South Waziristan and 15 Lashkar-e-Islam fighters in Khyber, and detained 17 Taliban fighters in Bannu and a suicide bomber in Dera Ismail Khan. The Taliban killed a pro-government tribal leader in Bajaur and captured another in Mohmand.
Iraq
The speaker of parliament said national elections will likely be held in March. Security forces detained six al Qaeda operatives in northern Iraq, Baghdad, and Baqubah, three Promised Day Brigade fighters in Baghdad, and three Hezbollah Brigade operatives in northern Baghdad.
Al Qaeda
UK – Hidden threat from al-Qaeda sleeper cells
Afghanistan
Soviets’ Afghan ordeal vexed Gates on troop-surge plan
Pakistan
Zardari hands over control of Pak nuke weapons to Gilani
China
India concerned over China, Pakistan military ‘nexus’
Fighting intensifies in northwestern Taliban strongholds
Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps are concentrating on Taliban strongholds in a region that borders the Arakzai, Kurram, and Khyber tribal agencies.