Yes, I certainly can ....

It has to do with a case that came before Sotomayor on the 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in November of 2005 ....

On 8-22-01, a disabled veteran up here where I am was taken into custody in the lobby of the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany, New York and he was escorted to the tenth floor secure psychiatric ward, a locked ward, where he was incarcerated as a dangerous mental patient ....

On his way in to the Stratton VA, he placed a call with an ex-Marine who was an Albany Police Officer, telling the Police officer to come and find him in the Stratton VA when he got the message the disabled veteran left for him that morning on entering the Stratton VA ....

According to the afteraction report filed in the matter by the VA doctor who had the disabled veteran in custody, the disabled veteran had come to the Stratton VA that morning seeking sanctuary ....

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...mp;#entry280925

The sworn affidavits filed by the Albany Police Officer in the matter can be found at this site:

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...mp;#entry751592

Based on that sworn affidavit and other evidence, to include the report filed by the VA doctor above here, Rensselaer County Court Judge Patrick McGrath issued a written statement on July 13, 2004 that in his opinion as a judge, based on the evidence:

"Needless to say, your allegations are disturbing, especially as they encompass potential federal, as well as state, criminal charges, in that they include, among others, an allegation of false imprisonment in a federal facility, Stratton VA Medical Center."

end quote

It was that matter of the criminal false imprisonment that was before Sotomayor in November of 2005 ....

Sotomayor covered it up and protected the PERPETRATORS, and to do so, she buried the report of Judge McGrath and the sworn affidavit of the Albany Police Officer ...

She protected those who had committed alleged crimes against a disabled veteran that occurred in a VA Hospital ....

Many veterans watched her in court that morning when this disabled veteran came before her to ask her to allow this matter of the false imprisonment to be tried in federal district court in Albany ....

The utter contempt that Sotomayor exhibited towards this disabled veteran and his request was palpable ....

So she has closed off this veteran from the Stratton VA Hospital, so that he cannot get care there as a veteran, and more to the point, by covering over this false imprisonment of this one veteran, and by protecting its perpetrators, Sotomayor has made it incandescently clear to all of us up here that this could happen to any of us, and there would not be a thing that we could do about it ....

Somebody who covets our property could secure a fraudulent involuntary commitment order, as was done here, and have us taken into custody by the Stratton VA as dangerous mental patients .....

But for the Albany Police Officer in this case, this disabled veteran simply would have disappeared without a trace ....

Obama mocks us by appointing this woman to the U.S. Supreme Court ....

Not only did she bury the sworn affidavit of the Albany Police Officer, she also took her judicial scissors or pruning shears, and she lopped off the branch of law stemming from a 1975 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made this act illegal ....

In other words, she engaged in JUDICIAL ACTIVISM .....

She totally changed the law in the State of New York from what was written to her NEW POLICY which allows the "state" to retaliate against citizens who are investigating it for corruption ....

And so ...

"Roadside blast kills 3 Americans in western Iraq"

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

26 MAY 2009

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb blasted a U.S. convoy west of Baghdad, killing three Americans, including a top reconstruction official who once headed the Illinois Commerce Commission, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.

The attack occurred Monday on the eastern outskirts of Fallujah, which used to be the main stronghold of Sunni insurgents until U.S. troops overran the city in November 2004 in the bitterest urban fighting of the Iraq war.

Since then, Fallujah, 40 miles (70 kilometers) west of Baghdad in Anbar province, has been among the most heavily guarded cities in Iraq.

A fatal attack in such an area illustrates the resilience of the insurgents despite major setbacks on the battlefield during the past two years.

Those killed in the blast included Terrence "Terry" Barnich, 56, deputy director of the State Department office that oversees U.S. reconstruction projects in Iraq, as well as a U.S. soldier and a Defense Department employee working for the U.S. Embassy, according to a U.S. statement.

Two other people were wounded, the U.S. said.

None of the victims except Barnich was identified.

"We and all who are working for a brighter future for Iraq condemn this terrible attack in the strongest possible terms," U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill said in a statement.

"We remain committed as ever to helping Iraqis achieve the peace, stability and prosperity that will make such acts of terror a thing of the past."

At least four U.S. civilians have been killed in Iraq since Friday, when a defense contractor died in a rocket or mortar attack near the U.S. Embassy and another was found stabbed in his car.

No arrests have been announced in the stabbing.

Barnich's sister, Rochelle Barnich, described her brother as a person with a great sense of humor who had been fascinated with politics since they were children.

Barnich's family was notified of his death Monday.

Barnich served as chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission from 1989 to 1992.

He also worked as chief counsel to former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson and as a campaign manager for Republican candidate Judy Baar Topinka when she ran for governor in 2006.

He moved to Iraq in 2007 and was an adviser to the Ministry of Electricity until he was hired as deputy director of the Iraq Transition Assistance Office in Baghdad.

Barnich had planned to stay in Iraq for 11 months but extended his stay because he loved the work, according to an associate, Craig Clausen.

He planned to return to the United States in July and assume his former job as CEO of the Chicago consulting company New Paradigm Resources Group, according to Clausen.

The convoy was returning to Baghdad after inspecting a waste water treatment plant under construction in Fallujah, the largest and most complex U.S. government-funded project in Anbar province.

The project has been long-delayed by a litany of problems, including deficient contracting and administration, suspected sectarian discrimination by the Iraqi central government and poor contractor performance.

Insurgents once held sway over Fallujah and the rest of Anbar, the largest of Iraq's 18 provinces.

The city gained notoriety in 2004 when insurgents killed four employees of the Blackwater security firm and hung their bodies from a bridge.

Fighting raged in Anbar even after U.S. troops captured Fallujah.

But violence fell off dramatically two years later when Sunni tribesmen turned against al-Qaida in Iraq and joined forces with American troops.

Last year, the U.S. military withdrew from most of Anbar's cities, including Fallujah, well ahead of a June 30 deadline for U.S. troops to leave Iraq's urban areas.

Like many cities in Iraq, Fallujah has a number of U.S.-supported reconstruction projects, many of them aimed at improving essential services and promoting businesses.

At least five other State Department employees have been killed in Iraq, including Steven Farley, who died in a June 2008 bombing at an Iraqi council building in Baghdad's Sadr City.

As of Monday, at least 4,301 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
___

Associated Press Writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago contributed to this report.

"Official: Car bombing kills about 30 in Pakistan"

By BABAR DOGAR, Associated Press Writer

27 MAY 2009

LAHORE, Pakistan – Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices in Lahore on Wednesday, killing about 30 people and wounding at least 250 in one of Pakistan's deadliest attacks this year, officials said.

At least four men with rifles stepped from the car and opened fire on the intelligence agency building, then set off a massive blast when security guards returned fire, officials said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik suggested the attack could be retaliation for the government's military offensive to rout Taliban militants from the northwestern Swat Valley.

Lahore is the country's second-largest city and sits near the Indian border, and assaults there have heightened fears that militancy in nuclear-armed Pakistan is spreading well beyond the northwest region bordering Afghanistan.

Wednesday's attack was the third major strike in Lahore in recent months.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest bombing.

Police said two suspects were detained.

Raja Riaz, a senior minister in the Punjab provincial government, told reporters that about 30 people were killed.

Sajjad Bhutta, another senior government official, told reporters more than 250 people were injured.

The explosion sheared the walls off buildings in a main business district.

The ceilings of operating rooms in a nearby hospital collapsed, injuring 20 people.

TV footage showed bleeding bystanders and emergency workers carrying the injured toward ambulances.

Rescuers rushed to free officers buried in the rubble.

"The moment the blast happened, everything went dark in front of my eyes," witness Muhammad Ali said.

"The way the blast happened, then gunfire, it looked as if there was a battle going on."

Sajjad Bhutta, a senior government official in Lahore, told reporters that a car carrying several gunmen pulled up in a street between offices of the emergency police and the Inter-Service Intelligence agency, Pakistan's premier spy agency.

"As some people came out from that vehicle and starting firing at the ISI office, the guards from inside that building returned fire," he said.

As the firing continued, the car suddenly exploded, he said.

The spy agency and police building were both badly damaged.

An AP reporter saw dozens of troops entering the spy agency building to supervise the rescue work, while gunshots were heard from inside the building even one hour after the blast.

Television footage showed officers dragging a man from the scene.

Malik blamed the attack on militants that government forces are fighting in the Swat Valley and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near Afghanistan.

"These terrorists were defeated in FATA and Swat and now they have come here," he told reporters.

The offensive in Swat is seen as a test of the government's resolve to combat the spread of militancy, and is strongly backed by Washington and Pakistan's other Western allies.

The army has said at least 1,100 militants have been left dead in the monthlong operation.

The offensive has spurred fears that the Taliban could stage revenge assaults.

The Inter-Services Intelligence agency is not directly involved in the fighting in Swat but is responsible for gathering intelligence to support the operation.

The agency has also been behind the arrest of top al-Qaida operatives in recent years, and is responsible for the detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects.

Wednesday's attack was the third major one in Lahore this year.

In March, a group of gunmen attacked Sri Lanka's visiting cricket team in the heart of the city, killing six police officers and a driver and wounding several players.

Later that month, gunmen raided a police academy on the city's outskirts, leaving at least 12 dead during an eight-hour standoff with security forces, including army troops.

Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility.

A variety of militant groups exist in Pakistan beyond al-Qaida and the Taliban, and officials and analysts believe they are increasingly inter-linked, which could make it easier to stage more sophisticated, multidimensional attacks.

Punjab is Pakistan's most populous province and home to some of its most violent groups.

The Inter-Services Intelligence agency is believed to have helped set some of them up in Pakistan's dispute with India over the Kashmir region.

U.S. officials have said the spy agency still maintains links with some of the outfits, vexing Washington.
___

Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmad contributed to this report from Islamabad.

Better yet, tazvil04 ....

I've got a link to the December 15, 2005 SOTOMAYOR decision burying the appeal ....

Let's go there, because it is a lot more informative ....

It is also illustrative of what I believe is CHICANERY and INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY on the part of Sotomayor, which is really what should be at issue in here, in this thread ....

The three judges were:

HON. SONIA SOTOMAYOR
HON. ROBERT A. KATZMANN
HON. RICHARD K. EATON

Judge Richard K. Eaton is a Judge of the United States Court of International Trade ....

The short decision starts out by stating what the law SHOULD BE with respect to appeals in the federal 2d Circuit, to wit:

A district court's dismissal of a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) is reviewed de novo.

See Cooper v. Parsky, 140 F.3d 433, 440 (2d Cir. 1998).

"(I)n ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a court is required to accept the material facts alleged in the complaint as true, and not to dismiss `unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.'"

Valmonte v. Bane, 18 F.3d 992, 998 (2d Cir. 1994) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957) (citation omitted)).

end quotes

That is what SHOULD have happened in this case, but did not ...

In the very next line, Sotomayor and colleagues took that judicial standard of review which should have applied, and they tossed it right into the **** can by RUBBER-STAMPING the court below, to wit:

We agree with the district court that, even construing Plante's amended complaint liberally, Plante's conspiracy claims were wholly devoid of any supporting detail and Plante's own exhibits defeated his claim that he had been unlawfully committed.

end quotes

That is INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY staring you right in the face there, tazvil04 .....

That is a falsehood, and the three judges on the panel, including Sotomayor, would have been the first to know, because when he appeared in court that morning before Sotomayor et al, Plante took pains to detail exactly what did transpire on the morning of 8-22-01 from the time he walked in to the lobby of the Stratton VA in Albany and was taken into custody until he was finally released after the Albany Police officer made it clear to the confining doctor at the VA that he was violating the law in the State of New York by holding Plante in custody ....

That doctor filed an official report of the incident after Plante was finally released ....

That official report, which Sotomayor would have seen if she had actually conducted a real de novo review stated in relevant part as follows:

"THE AUTHOR WOULD HAVE RETAINED PLANTE INVOLUNTARILY BUT FOR AN ALBANY, NEW YORK POLICE OFFICER, who reported he 'went out to dinner last Sunday (8/19/01)" with him and found him to be in his usual state of mind."

"The Albany, New York Police Officer listened patiently while Plante reviewed his version of events, and agreed with him."

"I ASKED THE ALBANY, NEW YORK POLICE OFFICER IF HE HAD ANY REQUESTS OR CONCERNS ABOUT PLANTE'S MENTAL HEALTH, AND HE REPLIED NEGATIVELY."

"IN FACT, THE ALBANY, NEW YORK POLICE OFFICER WAS MORE CONCERNED, AS WAS PLANTE, ABOUT THE LEGALITY OF THE 9.41 PETITION."

end quotes

There is no way that you can read that report or any of the other exhibits, and come to a conclusion that Plante was not being held against his will in the secure mental facility of the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany, New York on 8-22-01 ....

And yet, with a flick of her judicial pen, Sotomayor changed the facts and by doing so, she changed history here ....

That is DISHONESTY to me, tazvil04 ....

DISHONESTY should be a disqualifying quality in a Supreme Court nominee ....

As should CHICANERY ....

By misstating the facts and dismissing the appeal as she did, while covering up the fact that in the record before her, there was a copy of an unlawfully issued INVOLUNTARY PSYCHIATRIC COMMITMENT ORDER made out for Plante by a medical doctor who had never even seen him before, Sotomayor left stand a POLICY OF UNLAWFUL RETALIATION in New York State involving the INVOLUNTARY PSYCHIATRIC CONFINEMENT of people who would dare to challenge corruption in NYS, as Plante was doing on 8-22-01, when he was taken into custody at the Stratton VA, where he had gone for what he thought would be sanctuary on federal grounds from New York State RETALIATION ....

AND SHE HID THE FACT of that on-going RETALIATION, tazvil04, when she buried this appeal based on a FABRICATION ....

We do not need her in the U.S. Supreme Court, tazvil04 ....

We DO NOT need an INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST person sitting as a judge on the U.S. Supreme Court ...

And so ...

"Military retakes largest town in Swat Valley"

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

30 MAY 2009

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani troops have retaken the largest town in the Swat Valley from the Taliban as the army presses its offensive against militants in the country's northwest, the army spokesman said Saturday.

Government forces had full control of Mingora, though they were still meeting pockets of resistance from fighters on the outskirts of the town, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press.

The military launched a major offensive one month ago in the Swat Valley and neighboring areas to oust Taliban militants who were extending their control over the northwestern region, near the border with Afghanistan.

The campaign is strongly backed by Washington and the government's other Western allies, who see it as a test of the government's resolve to fight extremism in the Pakistan.

"As far as Mingora city, security forces have taken over," Abbas said.

"There are still pockets of resistance."

"They are on the periphery of Mingora city."

Government troops have been advancing steadily into the Swat region, bombarding towns from the air and fighting house-to-house with Taliban gunmen.

The fighting has caused more than 2 million people to flee the region, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis.

More than 160,000 people are taking refuge in sweltering refugee camps south of the battle zone, while the rest are staying with relatives or relying on goodwill from local residents.

"Pakistan: Corpses lie exposed in retaken Swat town"

By INAM UR-REHMAN, Associated Press Writer

31 MAY 2009

MINGORA, Pakistan – Corpses lay exposed in the Swat Valley's main town on Sunday, and residents rushed to mostly empty markets in search of food a day after the military claimed to have retaken the city from the Taliban.

Elsewhere in the northwest, officials said scores of militants were killed in fighting with soldiers that could signal Pakistan is expanding the offensive from Swat into other parts of the northwestern border region with Afghanistan.

Many buildings were damaged in parts of Mingora seen by The Associated Press, but not badly.

Two decomposing bodies, apparently those of insurgents, lay unburied in a cemetery, while a third charred corpse lay close to a shopping mall.

The smell of explosives hung in the air.

"We have been starving for many days."

"We have been cooking tree leaves to keep ourselves alive."

"Thank God it is over," said Afzal Khan.

"We need food, we need help."

"We want peace."

Pakistan launched an offensive against militants in the Swat Valley and surrounding districts last month after they violated the terms of a cease-fire and advanced into a region close to the capital, Islamabad.

Speaking in Singapore, Pakistan's defense secretary predicted the army would retake the whole Swat region in "two to three days," giving hope some of the estimated 3 million refugees may soon be able to return home.

Pakistan's military spokesman said that assessment was overly optimistic.

The Swat offensive has earned Western praise, as troops have regained large swaths of the region from an estimated 4,000 militants, but several places remain under militant control.

In South Waziristan, insurgents attacked an army convoy Saturday night in Tiarza village in South Waziristan, sparking battles in various parts of the region, two intelligence officials said.

They estimated that 50 militants and two soldiers were killed.

Early Sunday, militants fired more than a dozen missiles at an army camp in South Waziristan's Jandola area.

The military retaliated using artillery, and some troops moved into a Taliban-held village to force out the armed Islamist extremists.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

The information could not be independently verified because of limited access to the remote area, and other officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Most of Mingora's around 375,000 residents fled before or during the offensive.

The military briefly lifted a curfew Sunday, allowing some of the 20,000 or so that remained to buy provisions in the few shops that were open.

Ali Rehman said he had not left his house for 25 days.

"I never knew who was fighting and who was being killed," he said, clutching two bags of flour.

"I need help to keep my family alive because I do not have any source of income anymore."

Authorities said they were distributing aid to people trapped in Mingora, and water and gas supplies were being restored.

An emergency medical team had been flown in and would work to reopen the town's hospital and treat civilians wounded in the fighting, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said.

But it will be at least two weeks before power is back on, and refugees are not yet being encouraged to return home, he added.

The Taliban warned they would attack Pakistani cities in retaliation for the Swat offensive.

They claimed responsibility for Wednesday's gun and suicide bomb attack in the eastern city of Lahore that killed at least 30 people.

A day later, three suicide bombings killed at least 14 people in two cities in the northwest.

Abbas said Saturday that 1,217 militants have been killed in the Swat offensive and 79 arrested, and 81 soldiers have died — figures that cannot be independently verified.

The military has not released civilian casualty numbers and says all care is being taken to protect the innocent.
___

Associated Press writer Vijay Joshi contributed to this report from Singapore.

"Troops hunt Taliban as Pakistan says victory near"

by Lehaz Ali

31 MAY 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan's defence secretary said Sunday that a month-long offensive to crush Taliban fighters in northwest Swat could end within days, as fierce fighting spilled into a nearby tribal area.

Swat valley's main town Mingora is back in government hands, the military announced late Saturday, and security officials said they were now pursuing the top leadership of the hardline Taliban movement into the nearby mountains.

Secretary of Defence Syed Athar Ali told a security forum in Singapore that three targeted northwest districts were almost clear of Taliban rebels.

"Operations in Swat, Buner and adjoining areas have almost met complete success," he said.

"Only five to ten percent of the job is remaining and hopefully within the next two to three days these pockets of resistance will be cleared."

However, chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP that it was impossible to estimate when the offensive would end.

"The operation is continuing in all of the areas and at this stage we cannot give any timeframe," he said.

The army remains locked in battle in some areas, but the fall of Mingora was a critical milestone in an offensive launched after the Taliban thrust to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad in April.

Pakistan's military also reported that 25 militants and seven soldiers were killed in clashes in South Waziristan near the Afghan border, a bolt-hole for Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants south of the current army bombardment.

"Miscreants attacked a security forces checkpost last night (Saturday) in Spinkai Raghzai, South Waziristan agency."

"The attack was repulsed successfully, inflicting heavy casualties on militants," it said in a statement.

Fifteen militants and three soldiers died in the clash in Spinkai Raghzai, while elsewhere in the semi-autonomous tribal area 10 insurgents and four troops including a lieutenant died when rebels attacked a military convoy.

Civilians have started fleeing the area fearing a fresh military onslaught, but the army has denied an imminent assault on Waziristan, where militants branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West are holed up.

The United States, which is firmly backing the current military drive, had warned that the rebels threaten Pakistan's very existence.

Officials have said that lower-ranking Taliban leaders had been killed but it was harder to get to the top leaders, who had a network of hardcore militants around them and had slipped into the rugged mountain terrain.

"They will be eliminated wherever we find them," said one military official, who did not wish to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media, adding:

"We believe that they are somewhere in the mountains."

Pakistan has slapped a 600,000-dollar price on the head of firebrand Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah for masterminding the nearly two-year uprising in the valley to enforce sharia law.

The government has also offered rewards for 21 rebel chiefs -- wanted dead or alive -- from Swat.

The military claims to have killed 1,244 militants since the offensive began, although the numbers are impossible to verify.

As the government ups its campaign to stamp out the militants, fears are growing of a wave of revenge attacks.

The northwestern capital Peshawar and the eastern cultural centre of Lahore have both been rocked by deadly explosions in the last five days, killing a total of 39 people and wounding hundreds more.

A spokesman for Pakistan Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud has claimed Wednesday's suicide bombing on a police building in Lahore, and warned of more "massive attacks" to avenge the Swat military operation.

Nearly 2.4 million people have fled the current offensive, and the military relaxed a curfew Sunday in most parts of the northwest including Mingora to allow people trapped on the roads to return home or leave the region.

Senior Red Cross officials said Sunday they were "gravely concerned" over the situation in Swat Valley, after an ICRC team reported problems with running water, food, electricity and communications.

"The people of Swat need greater humanitarian protection and assistance immediately," said Pascal Cuttat, head of the organisation's delegation in Pakistan.

"Given what we have already seen on the ground, we are mobilising additional resources, but safe and unimpeded access to the area remains essential for our teams to deliver."

"Analysis: True Swat victory won't be military - Analysis: Battlefield success only 1 measure of victory in Pakistan's fight with the Taliban"

By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press

Last updated: 2:45 p.m., Sunday, May 31, 2009

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan says it is close to beating the Taliban in the Swat Valley, but battlefield success alone does not equal victory: Militant commanders are still at large, local governments and police forces have been decimated and millions of residents are displaced from their homes.

Even if Pakistan succeeds in eliminating insurgents in one of its most intense operations yet, the northwestern valley is just one of several militant strongholds in the U.S.-allied country -- and not even the most important.

Already, fighting is flaring in the semiautonomous tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where al-Qaida and the Taliban are more entrenched than they were in Swat.

The U.S. sees Swat as a test of nuclear-armed Pakistan's ability and willingness to tackle insurgents in the northwest blamed for attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Over the weekend, the Pakistani army said it had reclaimed Mingora, Swat's main town.

The defense secretary said Sunday the whole valley could be back in control within two or three days, though other officials have given longer timeframes.

In announcing Mingora's capture, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas acknowledged the escape of an unknown number of militants.

So far, no top commanders, including Swat Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah, are known to have been killed or captured.

Some parts of the valley remain under militant control.

After a violent, two-year Taliban campaign, the valley's local administrative authorities have been severely damaged, with top lawmakers, government officials and business leaders fleeing months ago.

Militants in Swat frequently targeted police, while desertions further thinned their ranks.

In December, officials said about 300 policemen had fled the force, figures sure to have risen in the months since.

Re-establishing local government -- most importantly bringing back police patrols -- is critical to holding Swat once the army offensive ends.

To do that well could take months, possibly years.

For now, it appears the army and paramilitary forces will have to act as the police, as they were already trying to do in many parts of Swat before the offensive.

The military insists it has tried to minimize civilian casualties and property damage in Swat's towns, knowing public support could wane otherwise.

Still, video footage and reporters' accounts from various parts of the valley and nearby districts indicate significant destruction.

For many of the 3 million refugees, a return could mean finding a crushed home or damaged businesses, fueling popular anger and hampering efforts to jump-start the local economy in a region that was once a jewel of Pakistani tourism.

Pakistan has announced $100 million in federal aid to help the Swat refugees while the U.N. is pleading with donors to come up with $543 million to ease what is one of the largest internal displacements in a country in many years.

Ordinary Pakistanis also have launched drives to help the refugees, most of whom are staying with relatives or friends but some 200,000 of whom are in camps.

There also are plans to beef up the police force in Swat, in part by using retired military officers.

But timeframes are unclear, and the country's track record on post-conflict work is not inspiring.

Before the latest offensive in Swat, Pakistan waged a six-month fight against insurgents in Bajur, a tribal region considered a sanctuary for al-Qaida and the Taliban on the Afghan border.

Of up to 500,000 people displaced from Bajur, some 230,000 have returned since the army declared victory there in February, only to find as many as 6,000 homes and shops destroyed or damaged, said a top administrative official in the region, Shafir Ullah Jan.

An AP reporter recently saw tribal police and troops patrolling several Bajur towns, but at least one area, Loi Sam, is still having security problems three months after the militants were declared vanquished.

Jan said the government was fixing some buildings and roads in Bajur's main town of Khar, and that foreign aid was part of that, but he had yet to see a comprehensive plan for reconstruction for an area that is far more needy than Swat.

"I ask the people of Swat to see what is happening to us," said Zamin Khan, 37, a Khar resident.

"If we were not helped by the government, the people of Swat would also not be helped because after the operation in Swat, the government may launch a new operation in some other area, and Swat would then be neglected the way we are being ignored."

With every new instance of violence in the tribal belt -- where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is rumored to be hiding -- the odds of another offensive appear greater.

The latest clashes came over the weekend, when insurgents attacked an army convoy in South Waziristan late Saturday.

That prompted several battles that killed dozens of insurgents and seven soldiers, intelligence officials and the military said.

South Waziristan is the main base for Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Last week, militants attacked the headquarters of Pakistan's top intelligence agency and a police center in the eastern city of Lahore, killing 30 people.

Mehsud loyalists said the attack was revenge for the Swat offensive.

Officials said three bombings that killed 14 people a day later in the northwestern cities of Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan also involved Taliban retaliation.

A Mehsud deputy warned Pakistanis to vacate several cities because more bombings were on the way.

The threat was a reminder: Swat may not be Pakistan's first attempt to dismantle the insurgency, but it can't be its last, either.

------

Nahal Toosi is an Associated Press correspondent based in Islamabad. AP writer Habib Khan contributed to this report from Bajur.

It seems that every day, we are learning more and more about Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor that serves to do nothing but raise more questions about who she is, as opposed to settling any issues about her ...

According to analyses from people who have covered her judicial career, she is adept at covering her tracks, so that her true character as a judge is shrouded in mystery ....

But somebody can only shroud things to a degree, and so it is with Sonia Sotomayor ....

And by extension, Barack Obama ...

In November of 2005, I stood in federal court as an observer when a disabled veteran from upstate New York, one Paul R. Plante, appeared before Sotomayor in the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City to request a JURY TRIAL in a civil rights action stemming from a series of assaults against Plante that culminated in him being unlawfully imprisoned in the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany, New York on 8-22-01 ....

It was that unlawful imprisonment which led Plante to be appealing to Sonia Sotomayor in November of 2005 for a jury trial ...

In response to his request, Sotomayor openly mocked him in court, telling him that he had not been harmed by the experience, to include the assault, which is on videotape, and which Sotomayor was well aware of, since that videotape was front and center in the record before her as evidence of what was transpiring in Rensselaer County in the days leading up to Plante's unlawful imprisonment in the Stratton VA in Albany, New York on 8-22-01 ...

In an unpublished summary order ( http://vlex.com/vid/paul-r-plante-eugene-b...dants-20096740# ) denying Plante a jury trial in the matter, Sotomayor clearly indicated knowledge of the videotape assault as follows:

Additionally, to the extent that Plante has attempted to assert claims against Jeffrey Pelletier for assault, he has not alleged that Pelletier is a state actor liable under § 1983.

The assault that Sotomayor is referring to in that statement is on YOUTUBE at this URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89m5TEuu3M

When you hear Pelletier speaking in there, the person he is calling a "******* RETARD" is Plante, who suffered a serious head wound in Viet Nam ....

As you consider Sotomayor's FITNESS to serve as a U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, keep these words from this videotape in mind ....

THIS IS WHAT SONIA SOTOMAYOR HAS NO PROBLEMS WITH WHEN IT COMES TO PREJUDICE!

And violence against a protected class of persons in the USA ....

And so ...

"Bomb in Baghdad market kills 4 and wounds 13"

1 JUNE 2009

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A bomb killed four people and wounded 13 in a Baghdad vegetable market Monday, police and witnesses said, in the second attack there in just over two weeks.

Police said the death toll from the blast in Baghdad's Doura district in the early hours, when farmers and merchants gather at the market, was unlikely to rise further.

On May 21, a bomb in the same market killed three U.S. soldiers and 12 civilians.

"All of a sudden there was an explosion."

"People were torn apart and killed and wounded."

"Why?"

"For nothing," said a man who gave his name as Abu Haider, who said he had helped some of the casualties.

"Do you see an American soldier here?"

"Or an Iraqi soldier?"

"There are just traders."

The number of Iraqi civilians killed by violence fell last month to its lowest level since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, figures from the Ministry of Health showed.

The U.S. military says al Qaeda -- whom it blames for most of the blasts in Iraq -- has been weakened and recent attacks represent an attempt to show they are still around.

The spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, Major-General David Perkins, told Reuters last week the Sunni Islamist militants were running out of suicide bombers, forcing them to leave more bombs on roadsides, a less effective means of killing.

"The majority of the vehicle-borne (bombs) we've seen in the last couple of months are abandoned vehicles ... on a timer."

"It is instructive that they (al Qaeda) are having a more difficult time recruiting suicide bombers to drive the vehicles," he said.

(Reporting by Haider Salahuddin; Additional reporting by Deborah Lutterbeck in Washington; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Andrew Roche)

"10 security guards killed in Afghan bomb blasts"

3 JUNE 2009

KABUL – Two roadside bombs tore through a convoy carrying private security guards, killing 10 of them in eastern Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday.

The convoy was initially hit by a blast that killed one security guard on Tuesday, said police chief Azizullah Wardak of Paktia province.

A second improvised explosive device then ripped through the convoy and killed nine guards in another vehicle in Paktia's Chamkani district, Wardak said.

The guards were based with U.S. troops in the area.

It was unclear what security company they were working for, or if they were traveling with American forces.

The attack in the country's east came as 11 Taliban militants were killed in a joint operation by coalition and Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan.

Coalition and Afghan troops attacked the militants in a compound Tuesday night in southern Zabul province, said police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang.

No coalition or Afghan forces were killed or wounded in the operation, he said.

In a separate incident, a roadside bomb killed a soldier in the NATO-led force on Tuesday, the alliance said.

No other details, including the soldier's nationality, were released.

Militants have stepped up attacks across Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama's administration has ordered 21,000 new U.S. troops to join the fight in a hope of reversing the Taliban gains.

An Associated Press tally that found U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have risen to 65 so far this year, up from 36 over the first five months of 2008 — though U.S. and coalition troops have also killed hundreds more militants.

As newly arriving Marines enter violent Afghan south — the spiritual home of the Taliban and the country's major drug-producing region — the military said Tuesday that U.S. deaths will likely increase even further this summer.

U.S. experts say they expect improvised explosive device attacks — roadside bombs and suicide attacks — to rise 50 percent this year, contributing to the increase in casualties.

"Number of roadside bombs surge in Afghanistan"

By SAGAR MEGHANI, Associated Press Writer

Thu Jun 4, 10:45 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Insurgent use of roadside bombs in Afghanistan has surged 80 percent this year, remaining the No. 1 killer of foreign troops, a NATO official said Thursday.

The increase since the same period last year includes bombs that detonated or were found by troops before they could explode, said Canadian Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

"This is very serious business for us," Blanchette told AP Broadcast in an interview from Kabul.

Roadside bombs have been the primary killer in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Last year, improvised devices and other roadside explosives killed 172 U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.

At least 31 American soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs this year, according to the Defense Department.

An American soldier was killed Thursday when a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military vehicle in eastern Afghanistan.

NATO reports that roadside bombs have caused 60 percent of the deaths in Afghanistan and severely wounded thousands of troops.

The military does not release specific incident numbers, saying the data is classified.

Part of the reason for the increase, Blanchette said, is the militants' understanding that they can't confront the military in direct action.

"They are using this as a last measure," he said.

Blanchette said as the methods and technologies change, the military needs to focus on cutting off the supply system that allows bomb components to flow into Afghanistan, in many cases from neighboring Pakistan.

Blanchette said stopping the bombings is a challenge because of the variety of places militants can use them — buried along a roadside, under a road, or hidden in a wall along routes military convoys commonly use.

"Anyplace where there is a bit of a funnel," Blanchette said, "you have that risk."

U.S. and international forces train troops on how to deal with the devices, both before and after they arrive in Afghanistan.

But Blanchette said militants are constantly adjusting and finding new ways to set up and camouflage the devices.

"There's always a risk that troops might be surprised," he said.

"D-Day memories: Chaos, heroism - Their ranks thinned by age, two region veterans relive June 6, 1944, the day Europe was saved from Hitler"

By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published in print: Saturday, June 6, 2009

Sixty-five years ago today, thousands of young GIs poured onto the beaches of Normandy, where they attacked entrenched Nazi fighters who had brutalized Europe for years.

On D-Day, as June 6, 1944 came to be known, U.S. and Allied forces gained a foothold on the continent to push back the Nazis and ultimately win victory in World War II.

The audacious air and amphibious assault remains the Greatest Generation's greatest date, symbolizing the courage shown by millions to liberate millions from the tyrannical Nazi rule of Adolf Hitler.

But for all its brilliant planning and success, D-Day did not unfold with precision, Capital Region veterans recall.

Many Americans who took part in the invasion didn't know where they were going until the final hours, or what they would face.

Soldiers became seasick as the rough waves buffeted landing craft filled with dozens of men.

Some boats hit sandbars, ejecting the troops weighed down by equipment into the chilly water.

Only the strong and lucky survived the combination of chaos and German gunfire.

More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded.

"Disorganization, confusion, incomplete or faulty implementation of plans characterized the initial phases," the U.S. Army Web site says.

"To their great credit, most of the troops were able to adapt."

On the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the end for the Nazi war machine, two Capital Region D-Day veterans shared their stories about how they had to scramble for their lives before they even stepped on the beaches at Normandy:

John Barnes, 84, left his home in Cohoes on Tuesday for his sixth and final return to Normandy since he nearly was killed there as an 18-year-old soldier.

He flew out with his daughter, and they are staying with relatives of French families he helped liberate as a 5-foot-8, 120-pound soldier.

Barnes was drafted in the Army National Guard infantry in 1943.

He jumped to the 29th Infantry Division in January 1944 while in England, where Allied troops trained for the assault on Normandy for several months.

Barnes was assigned to be an assistant to the flame thrower stationed near the rear of a landing craft that carried 30 men.

In the early morning of June 6, after some uncertainty about the weather, U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, ordered more than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft across the English Channel.

Barnes sailed on a troop ship with 3,000 men toward Omaha Beach.

He was not nervous.

He didn't know what to expect.

"I thought there was a 50-50 chance that we could land without a problem."

"I hadn't been in combat, and I had no idea of what we would be facing."

The ship stopped about seven miles off the Normandy coast to wait for dawn and transfer its men into smaller landing craft.

Barnes was standing in a boat with 30 other men at about 6:15 a.m., when it suddenly flooded with water and sank within 15 seconds.

Barnes bobbed up to the ocean's surface.

He could hear fighting on the beach, but it was too far to swim to.

The troops remained in the water for three hours before being rescued.

They landed on the beach days later and fought in hand-to-hand combat miles inland.

"From the time I entered the war, I was just lucky," said Barnes, who in July 1944 was hit in the head by bomb shrapnel.

He received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, French Legion of Honor and other medals.

Cortland Hopkins, 94, grew up in Schenectady and was part of the first wave of assaults on Utah Beach almost by accident.

On the morning of June 6, Hopkins was a transportation technician for the Army who thought he was sailing to Africa.

He happened to be on the wrong end of the ship's deck chatting with infantrymen when notification of the Normandy invasion came over a loudspeaker.

Suddenly, an officer ordered him down a cargo net and into a landing craft.

"I told him, 'I'm not infantry.'"

"He said, 'You are now, soldier.'"

"'Get your ass in the boat.'"

Hopkins recalled that the ocean played havoc with the soldiers.

"A lot of the poor guys got seasick," Hopkins said, sitting in his room at Evergreen Commons in East Greenbush.

"The channel was so rough."

"A lot were farm boys who hadn't seen waves like that."

Hopkins believes the small boat was overcrowded with soldiers.

After a short and foggy trip, the boat struck a sandbar and came to an abrupt halt.

As German forces fired relentlessly at the vessel, its 20 troops dumped themselves overboard, Hopkins said.

"I guess it was every man for himself."

Hopkins said many of the soldiers were weighed down by heavy backpacks that contained three days of food rations and more.

Not him.

As a kid, St. George's Episcopal Church of Schenectady sent Hopkins to summer camp in Lake George, where he took swimming and lifesaving courses.

He credits the lessons for saving his life.

"I swam until I got to the beach," Hopkins said.

Germans were firing the whole time.

After surviving the initial invasion "without a scratch," Hopkins was stationed at Normandy for four months.

He was discharged in 1946, moved to Rotterdam and worked for General Electric as a welder for 31 years.

D-Day "was something we had to do," Hopkins said.

"Hitler, I guess, wanted the world."

"He had to be stopped."

Dennis Yusko can be reached at 454-5353 or by e-mail at dyusko@timesunion.com.

"Obama hails `sheer improbability' of D-Day victory - Obama: Bravery and selflessness of D-Day veterans changed course of an entire century"

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:45 p.m., Saturday, June 6, 2009

OMAHA BEACH, France -- President Barack Obama honored the valiant dead and the "sheer improbability" of their D-Day victory, commemorating Saturday's 65th anniversary of the decisive invasion even as he remakes two wars and tries to thwart potential nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea.

The young U.S. commander in chief, speaking at the American cemetery after the leaders of France, Canada and Britain, held up the sacrifices of D-Day veterans and their "unimaginable hell" as a lesson for modern times.

"Friends and veterans, what we cannot forget -- what we must not forget -- is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century," he said.

"At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found it within themselves to do the extraordinary."

Obama opened the emotional day by meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the nearby picturesque village of Caen.

Their wives, dueling style icons in similar attire, met separately at the elegant French Prefecture.

Appearing with Sarkozy before reporters, Obama displayed growing impatience with North Korea and what he called its "extraordinarily provocative" nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

He suggested that the North is testing international patience as diplomacy has failed to persuade the reclusive communist government to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

"Diplomacy has to involve the other side engaging in a serious way in trying to solve problems," he said.

"We are going to take a very hard look at how we move forward on these issues, and I don't think that there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways."

Obama also took on Iran, suspected by the West of seeking to build its first nuclear bomb, an accusation Tehran denies.

The president has said military action remains on the table, but has offered to change U.S. policy and engage in talks with Tehran.

He said Saturday, though, it must be "tough diplomacy."

"We can't afford a nuclear arms race in the Middle East," Obama warned.

Sarkozy said he worries about "insane statements" by Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

At the same time, Obama is directing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- seeking to end the first and stepping up U.S. engagement in the second.

Both have lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in World War II.

This D-Day anniversary assumed special significance because veterans of the battle are reaching their 80s and 90s and their numbers are dwindling.

One American veteran, Jim Norene, who fought with the 101st Airborne Division, came back for Saturday's ceremony, but died in his sleep Friday night.

"Jim was gravely ill when he left his home, and he knew that he might not return," Obama said.

"But just as he did 65 years ago, he came anyway."

"May he now rest in peace with the boys he once bled with, and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here."

Joined by Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Obama stopped first at the gray granite visitors center and then at an overlook where the leaders talked at length with two D-Day veterans waiting at the top of the once-bloody bluffs.

The sunny sky, crashing waves, lush vegetation and pleasant breezes created a scene of seaside tranquility at the spot one D-Day veteran recalled as mostly "darkness and confusion."

"I lost a lot of pals on D-Day," said Norman Coleman of Manchester, England.

He marked the day by visiting several other burial grounds scattered around the region, where soldiers were buried as they fell in pitched battles over 12 decisive weeks.

Julien Marchand, a 40-year-old carpenter, spontaneously embraced Coleman in an outburst of gratitude on the streets of Caen, nearly knocking over the elderly veteran.

"Thank you, thank you, merci," Marchand exclaimed.

The ceremony at Omaha Beach, on what is technically U.S. soil at Colleville-sur-Mer, took place under an American flag flying from a metal pole hundreds of feet high.

The crowd of thousands spread far back from the leaders' platform and colonnade engraved with these words: "This embattled shore, portal of freedom, is forever hallowed by the ideals, the valor and the sacrifice."

With clusters of young people sprinkled among the graying heads and wheelchairs, the audience spilled down the path that cut between some of the nearly 10,000 perfectly aligned white crosses that mark the graves of U.S. dead.

A mother breast fed an infant on the lawn.

French adolescent girls whispered excitedly about the chance to see Obama.

Issac Phillips, 84, recalled having little idea what he was getting into in the dark early morning hours of June 6, 1944, as a private in the U.S. 22nd Infantry regiment who crossed the English Channel and landed at nearby Utah Beach.

"The water was cold, the boat was going like this" -- his arms spiked up and down -- "and some of them fell in the water."

"We are all close together and we can't move very much at all."

"They say if you stay close together, you don't get seasick."

"You get seasick anyway."

Allied forces charged the shores of five beaches on France's northern coast, facing German land mines, machine guns and heavy artillery.

Some 215,000 Allied soldiers, and roughly as many Germans, were killed or wounded during D-Day and the ensuing three months before the Allies captured Normandy, opening a path toward Paris that eventually took them to Germany and victory over the Nazis.

Before Obama delivered his 16-minute address, the U.S. presidential seal was placed on the lectern.

"You remind us that our future is not shaped by mere chance or circumstance," the president said to the gathered veterans.

"You could have done only what was necessary to ensure your own survival."

"But that's not what you did."

"That's not the story you told on D-Day."

A 21-gun salute lent an acrid smell to the air that grew grayer and chillier as the ceremony ended.

Taps played.

A 12-plane flyover of French, British and American jets boomed above.

There was a personal side to the wartime memories for Obama.

He mentioned his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who came ashore at Omaha Beach six weeks after D-Day.

Dunham's older brother, Ralph, hit Omaha on D-Day plus four.

Another great uncle, Charles Payne, helped liberate a satellite prison of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945 and accompanied Obama on his tour of Buchenwald on Friday, as well as to Normandy.

After the ceremony, Obama and his wife, Michelle, returned to Paris to reunite with their daughters, Sasha and Malia, for a family evening in the City of Light.

They planned sightseeing on Sunday before Obama returns to Washington from his trip, which also took him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The first lady and the girls planned to remain in France until at least Monday.

------

Associated Press writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report.

"US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 621 - At least 621 US military deaths in Afghanistan region since 2001, Defense Department says"

Associated Press

Last updated: 9:55 p.m., Friday, June 5, 2009

As of Friday, June 5, 2009, at least 621 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department.

The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

Of those, the military reports 457 were killed by hostile action.

Outside the Afghan region, the Defense Department reports 67 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Of those, three were the result of hostile action.

The military lists these other locations as Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba; Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen.

There were also four CIA officer deaths and one military civilian death.

------

The latest deaths reported by the military:

-- No new deaths reported.

------

The latest identifications reported by the military:

-- Army Spc. Jarrett P. Griemel, 20, La Porte, Texas; died Wednesday at Forward Operating Base Gardez, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident; assigned to the 425th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.

-- Army Sgt. Jasper K. Obakrairur, 26, Hilo, Hawaii, died Monday in Nerkh, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when an explosive detonated near his vehicle; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

-- The following three soldiers died Thursday near Kapisa, Afghanistan of wounds suffered from an explosive and small arms fire.

They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 108th Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition Squadron, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Georgia Army National Guard, Calhoun, Ga.:

-- Army Maj. Kevin M. Jenrette, 37, Lula, Ga.

-- Army Staff Sgt. John C. Beale, 39, Riverdale, Ga.

-- Army Spc. Jeffrey W. Jordan, 21, Rome, Ga.

------

On the Net:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/

HEALTHCARE IN PAKISTAN IS NOT AN AMERICAN PRIORITY, EITHER ....

ONLY KILLING PEOPLE OVER THERE IS, EITHER DIRECTLY WITH DRONE STRIKES, OR BY USING THE PAKISTANI ARMY AS A PROXY ...

AMERICA IS FIXATED WITH BODY COUNT ....

BECAUSE IT WORSHIPS A GOD THAT DEMANDS A LOT OF BLOOD AND HUMAN SUFFERING ...

And so ...

"Pakistan health care crumbles with refugee influx - Urine on floor, blood on beds: Pakistan hospitals overwhelmed by war and refugees"

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press

Last updated: 12:45 p.m., Saturday, June 6, 2009

DAGAR, Pakistan -- She doesn't have a name yet.

Born five weeks too early, she came into this world at the end of a painful six-hour drive on a creaky old bus that passed through a battlefield before arriving at the hospital.

There was no electricity and not enough fuel for an incubator to feed oxygen into her tiny lungs.

Her mother, Zeenat, lay in a rusted steel bed, covered in a dirty blue blanket, the incision from her Cesarean section now septic.

Pakistan's rundown health care system is near collapse, say health officials, bringing yet more instability to a country already in turmoil.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by more than two million refugees from the mountainous northwest, where the army is battling Taliban insurgents.

The crisis has exhausted doctors, used up limited supplies of medicines and buried hospitals in a mountain of red tape as they try to get money and medicine for the crisis.

"In fact, to tell you honestly, health is not our national priority."

"It is very unfortunate," says Dr. Arshad Khan, the health ministry's top man in Mardan, which is the epicenter of the refugee onslaught because it borders the battlezone.

"And now, with this crisis, every smaller hospital is overloaded with displaced people and our district hospital in Mardan is collapsing."

The outpatient unit at Khan's 213-bed district hospital used to see 100 people a day before the anti-Taliban war.

Now it is up to an average of 500 a day.

The government has allocated one million rupees ($12,500) for medicine for the refugees.

But Khan says it will be months before the refugees see any because of bureaucratic hurdles attached to the money.

"Our staff is disheartened."

"They are not motivated, the pay structure of doctors and paramedical staff is terribly low and under government rules we can't hire more people," he says.

"The conditions are very pathetic."

Pakistan's health care system is loaded with grim statistics, beginning with an annual budget of less than $150 million this year.

The government says it plans a 56 percent increase next year, bringing the budget to $300 million.

By contrast, Pakistan's defense budget last year came to $3.45 billion, and is expected to reach $3.65 billion next year.

More grim statistics: A new doctor to the government service is paid $120 a month, with an additional $16.50 housing allowance.

There are only 12 doctors to every 10,000 people in Pakistan and 10 hospital beds to every 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

That compares to 22 doctors and more than 30 hospital beds in the United States.

Khan says international charities have provided medicines and field hospitals in refugee camps.

But only about 20 percent of the 2 million refugees are in camps.

The rest are scattered throughout the frontier province, as well as other provinces in Pakistan.

Even in the camps, there are 10 dog bites a day and no rabies vaccine, says Alam Zaib, president of the Paramedical Association in Mardan.

And the refugees from the camp still come to the district hospital looking for tests and X-rays, carrying their elderly and their children.

Most hospitals in the surrounding area where fighting still rages have been closed.

That puts more strain on the Mardan District Hospital.

There, shadows lie on cement benches, or beneath on the floor, waiting for doctors.

The only relief from the stifling heat comes from a half dozen ceiling fans.

And even those don't work when the electricity is off, which is most of the day.

In the men's ward, 30 steel beds lie crammed together, with two-inch mattresses and no pillows.

Pools of urine spread on the floor, and fresh blood stains the ripped bedding.

Beneath the bed of 10-year-old Abdul Hadi lies vomit and urine.

His father stands by helpless.

"He has had a high temperature for four days."

"No one has given him anything."

"They just say, take him to Peshawar," he says.

The father has covered the soiled brown plastic sheet on the boy's mattress with a bright red one from home.

"We have nothing but how could I let him lie on this?" he asks, picking up a bloodstained sheet.

Abdul Wadood, a refugee from Swat, watches his grandfather lying with his stomach tube unused.

"They tried to insert it earlier but they couldn't, so they told me too to go to Peshawar," says Wadood, who is barely 24.

A technician at the laboratory, Etishan Khan, says the hospital now runs roughly 1,000 tests a day, compared to around 400 before the refugee influx.

His department requested another two technicians and two lab assistants more than a year ago.

"We have received nothing."

"We know that there is a problem here but what can we do?"

The steel grills between wards are closed in the morning to stop an influx of visitors.

Early one morning a security guard with a stick beats back a few visitors who try to come through with medicines for family members.

Khan Zameen, wearing a red felt cap, is one of only two cleaning people on duty at the Mardan District Hospital during the 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. shift.

He and his partner clean 10 wards, the blood bank and the X-ray department.

He gets paid $50 a month, less than Pakistan's minimum wage of $82 a month.

The one bathroom for 30 patients stinks of urine and feces.

The toilets are overflowing, the door to one cement cubicle is falling off and a two-inch river of urine covers the cement floor.

In one corner, garbage is piled high.

"We're not animals."

"How can they treat us like this?" he asks.

Things are not much better at Dagar Hospital, about 40 kilometers (24 miles) from Mardan.

Dagar was under siege for four weeks as the army tried to drive the Taliban from Buner, a mountainous district that bumps up against the Swat Valley.

Dr. Maqsood Ahmed, the senior health official for Buner, shut most of the 200-bed hospital because most of his staff fled when fighting broke out four weeks ago.

Only 40 remained behind, including two surgeons.

Now, the hospital is running just two wards and one operating theater.

"We are the only hospital in Malakand division (of which Swat and Buner are a part) that is functioning," says Ahmed.

"It was very difficult for us."

"We slept here, but our families, they also stayed in Dagar, so we were afraid for them, afraid for our patients and afraid for ourselves."

They begged for fuel from the military to run the generators.

In the early days of the war they received 20 and 30 liters at regular intervals from the army, but the generator requires 90 liters a day on average.

They had two ambulances but no fuel to run them.

"We even buried two bodies in our yard."

"They died and it was curfew and the families could not get to them," Ahmed says.

When Dagar was cleared of Taliban a week ago, the International Committee for the Red Cross moved quickly to bring 1,200 liters of fuel and some medicines and evacuate two war wounded.

As Ahmed walks the dark hallways, he apologizes for the garbage under the beds and shoved into the corners.

He says the cleaning staff left early in the war.

In the one operating theater, bloodied bandages stuff plastic garbage cans and an empty bottle is stuck beneath the two operating tables.

In what seemed like a small gesture to normalcy, Ahmed takes rubber slippers from a blackened wooden shelf and insisted they be worn instead of street shoes into the operating theater.

Yet the floor is littered with old bottles, needles and plastic wrappings.

It was at Dagar Hospital that Zeenat and her baby arrived.

But Ahmed couldn't even vaccinate the baby because he had no vaccines.

He had to ship them all to Mardan because he lost electricity for most of the day.

Ahmed has now put the mother on antibiotics.

And so far, the baby was alive.

"Iraqi forces arrest five U.S. security contractors"

By Waleed Ibrahim

7 JUNE 2009

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces detained five U.S. security contractors in connection with the killing of a fellow American contractor last month in Baghdad's Green Zone, an Iraqi government spokesman said on Sunday.

Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the five men were being held at an Iraqi police station in the capital's heavily-fortified central district while a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee investigated.

The detainees could become the first Americans to face local justice since a bilateral security pact came into force at the start of this year making U.S. contractors subject to Iraqi law.

"There are no formal charges against them so far, but they were detained because of the murder of the contractor last month," Khalaf told Reuters.

Citing an unnamed Iraqi official involved in the investigation, CNN said the men had been detained on Friday in a pre-dawn raid on their company's office in the Green Zone.

The murdered contractor, James Kitterman, was a 60-year-old Texan who owned a construction company operating in Iraq.

Kitterman was found bound, blindfolded and stabbed to death on May 22 in the heavily-fortified district.

Citing unnamed sources, CNN said the five men knew the victim and that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was involved in the probe into his death.

Heavily-armed and highly-paid Western contractors are a common sight in Iraq, especially in the Green Zone, also known as the International Zone.

Many provide security for the U.S. military in Iraq while others protect private firms.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in the Iraqi capital confirmed five U.S. citizens were taken into custody by Iraqi authorities.

"Embassy consular officials have visited the five and ensured they are being afforded their rights under Iraqi law."

"The men appeared well," the U.S. spokesman told Reuters.

The security agreement between Washington and Baghdad sets terms for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and establishes guidelines for their activities while they remain.

It also allows U.S. troops to be tried in Iraqi courts -- but only in cases of serious, premeditated crimes committed while soldiers were off-base and off-duty.

Private contractors, previously immune to prosecution in Iraq, are now wholly bound by Iraqi laws.

Under the pact, U.S. combat troops were scheduled to withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by the end of this month, while all U.S. troops must leave the country by December 31, 2011.

"Battles, ambushes kill around 30 in Afghanistan - Battles, ambushes kill around 30 in Afghanistan"

Associated Press

Last updated: 9:35 a.m., Sunday, June 7, 2009

KABUL -- A joint Afghan and U.S.-led coalition operation against insurgents in southern Afghanistan killed more than 20 Taliban fighters Sunday, while a militant ambush in the northwest killed four policemen, officials said.

The joint operation in Zabul province included ground forces and airstrikes.

The battle killed more than 20 Taliban, said provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjung.

After the operation, a roadside bomb exploded and killed one Afghan policeman as the forces were returning to base, he said.

Elsewhere, militants attacked a police security post in northwestern Faryab province, sparking a one-hour battle that killed four police, said Khalil Andrabi, the provincial police chief.

Another Taliban attack in the eastern province of Paktika killed the police chief in Sarhawza district, while militants elsewhere in Paktika ambushed a truck of private security guards, killing four of them, said Hamidullah Zhwak, a spokesman for the governor.

Militants have stepped attacks in the last several years and now control many rural areas in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama is sending 21,000 additional troops this year to help increase security in regions where the Afghan government has little control.

"APNewsBreak: Major problems found in war spending"

By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer

Sun Jun 7, 7:22 pm ET

WASHINGTON – This is one Christmas gift U.S. taxpayers don't need.

Construction of a $30 million dining facility at a U.S. base in Iraq is scheduled to be completed Dec. 25.

But the decision to build it was based on bad planning and botched paperwork.

The project is too far along to stop, making the mess hall a future monument to the waste and inefficiency plaguing the war effort, according to an independent panel investigating contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In its first report to Congress, the Wartime Contracting Commission presents a bleak assessment of how tens of billions of dollars have been spent since 2001.

The 111-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, documents poor management, weak oversight, and a failure to learn from past mistakes as recurring themes in wartime contracting.

The report is scheduled to be made public Wednesday at a hearing held by the House Oversight and Government Reform's national security subcommittee.

U.S. reliance on contractors has grown to "unprecedented proportions," says the bipartisan commission, established by Congress last year.

More than 240,000 private sector employees are supporting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thousands more work for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.

But the government has no central data base of who all these contractors are, what services they provide, and how much they're paid.

The Pentagon has failed to provide enough trained staff to watch over them, creating conditions for waste and corruption, the commission says.

In Iraq, the panel worries that as U.S. troops depart in larger numbers, there will be too few government eyes on the contractors left to oversee the closing of hundreds of bases and disposal of mountains of federal property.

At Rustamiyah, a seven-acre forward operating base turned over to the Iraqis in March, the military population plunged from 1,490 to 62 in just three months.

During the same period, the contractor population dropped from 928 to 338, leaving more than five contractors for every service member.

In Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama has ordered a large increase of U.S. troops, existing bases will have to expand and new ones will be built — without proper oversight unless the Pentagon rapidly changes course.

One commander in Afghanistan told the commission he had no idea how many contractors were on and off his base on a daily basis.

Another officer said he had property all over his installation but didn't know who owned it or what kind of shape it was in.

There are questionable construction projects in Afghanistan, too.

The commission visited the New Kabul Compound, a building intended to serve as headquarters for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

But members saw cracks in the structure, broken and leaking pipes, sinking sidewalks and other defects.

"The Army should not have accepted a building in such condition," the report says.

The commission cites concerns with a massive support contract known as "LOGCAP" that provides troops with essential services, including housing, meals, mail delivery and laundry.

Despite the huge size and importance of the contract, the main program office managing the work for both Afghanistan and Iraq has only 13 government employees.

For administrative help, it must rely on a contractor.

KBR Inc., the primary LOGCAP contractor in Iraq, has been paid nearly $32 billion since 2001.

The commission says billions of dollars of that amount ended up wasted due to poorly defined work orders, inadequate oversight and contractor inefficiencies.

In one example, defense auditors challenged KBR after it billed the government for $100 million in costs for private security even though the contract prohibited the use of for-hire guards.

KBR has defended its performance and criticized the commission for making "biased" statements against the company.

"As we look back on what we've done, we're real proud of being able to go into a war theater like that as a private contractor and support 200,000 troops," William P. Utt, chairman of the Houston-based KBR, said in May interview with AP reporters and editors.

KBR is also linked to the dining hall construction snafu, although the commission faults the military's planning and not the contractor.

With American forces scheduled to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, the U.S. will use the new facility for two years at most.

In July 2008, the Army said a new dining facility was badly needed at the Camp Delta forward operating base because the existing one was too small, had a saggy ceiling, poor lighting and an unsanitary wooden floor.

KBR was awarded a contract in September.

Work began in late October as American and Iraqi officials were negotiating the agreement setting the dates for the U.S. troop withdrawal.

But during an April visit to Camp Delta, the commission learned that the existing mess hall had just been renovated.

The $3.36 million job was done by KBR and completed in June 2008.

Commission staff toured the renovated hall "without seeing or hearing of any problems or shortfalls," the report says.

The decision to push ahead with the new hall was based on paperwork that was never updated and a failure to review the need for the project after the security agreement was signed.

Most of the materials have been ordered and construction is well under way.

That means canceling the project would save little money because KBR would have a legitimate claim for payment based on the investment it has already made.

The commission urges commanders in Iraq to review thoroughly all ongoing construction and improvement projects and only continue those essential to the life, health and safety of U.S. troops.
___

On the Net:

Wartime Contracting Commission: http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/

"Bombing kills 9 in mainly Shiite area in Baghdad"

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

8 JUNE 2009

BAGHDAD – A bomb tore through a minibus during morning rush hour Monday in a mainly Shiite area in Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 24, Iraqi officials said.

The blast was a grim reminder of the major challenge facing Iraqi forces three weeks ahead of the June 30 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from urban areas.

The bomb was attached to the minibus in the southern area of Abu Dshir, a Shiite enclave in the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Dora, police said.

"A ball of fire rose into the sky."

"We saw a minibus thrown about five meters (yards) into the air, then come down in flames," said Omar Abdul-Ghafar, a university student who was waiting with his friend for another bus.

The explosion left a crater at the entrance of the bus station where commuters were gathered to catch rides to different parts of the city.

An Associated Press photographer saw the charred hulk of the minibus and three other burned-out cars.

Security forces sealed off the area while ambulances rushed the wounded to the hospital.

Police and hospital officials gave the death toll and said 24 people also were wounded.

An Interior Ministry official said all those killed had been passengers on the bus while the wounded were bystanders waiting nearby.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Both districts have faced brutal sectarian bloodshed in past years but have seen a sharp decline in violence following a Sunni revolt against insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq and a Shiite militia cease-fire.

U.S.-Iraqi forces also increased their presence and cordoned areas off with concrete walls and checkpoints in the citywide push to quell the violence that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

With the decline in violence, Iraqi authorities have taken down many of the concrete walls in a bid to restore a sense of normalcy in the capital.

But several recent high-profile bombings have raised concerns about the readiness of Iraqi forces to take over their own security.

Abdul-Ghafar, a Sunni resident who fled the violence but returned to the area about six months ago when the situation seemed to improve, said the area was especially crowded because of students planning to take final exams.

His friend was injured in the shoulder and soaked in blood.

Lecture notes, cigarette packs and candy bars were scattered on the ground.

"Some children were crying and running aimlessly, looking for their parents," he said.

"People were so upset with police and began shouting insults on police and government for the security violations and for removing the concrete walls and stopping the searching process."

The June 30 withdrawal date was provided for in the U.S.-Iraq security agreement that took effect this year.

President Barack Obama plans to end U.S. combat operations by September 2010 and remove all U.S. troops from the country by Dec. 31, 2011.

Iraq's Shiite-led government insisted on a timetable for the withdrawal during last year's negotiations that produced the security agreement.
___

Associated Press Writer Saad Abdul-Kadir contributed to this report.

"7,000 US Marines patrolling southern Afghan desert"

By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer

8 JULY 2009

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan – Some 7,000 of the new U.S. troops ordered to Afghanistan are fanning out across the dangerous south this week on a mission to defeat the Taliban insurgency and to change the course of a war claiming American lives at a record pace.

The Marines represent the first wave of 21,000 troops ordered to Afghanistan this summer by President Barack Obama.

Most of the Marine buildup will occur in Helmand, the world's largest opium poppy-growing region and Afghanistan's most violent province.

Helmand borders Pakistan, where the Taliban's top leadership is believed to be based.

"This is where the fight is, in Afghanistan," 1st Sgt. Christopher Watson, who like many here has also served in Iraq, said Monday.

"We are here to get the job done."

Some 7,000 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are now in the country, Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Abe Sipe said.

The forces have brought fighter aircraft, transport helicopters, artillery and the infrastructure needed to support what will ultimately be a force of around 11,000.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 because the country's extremist Taliban leaders were sheltering Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, the Islamist terror group behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

The forces quickly defeated the Taliban, pushing the militants out of Kabul and their southern base in Kandahar.

But the international coalition and Afghan government have been bedeviled by a guerrilla war ever since, one that turned dangerously violent in 2006.

Along with this summer's troop buildup, the United States is training more Afghan security forces, increasing its spending on aid projects and working to strengthen government institutions, vital elements in a plan to stabilize the country and allow foreign forces to one day withdraw.

But adding troops also risks adding to the resentment of Afghans, especially if it brings about more civilian casualties, long an hot-button issue in this impoverished country.

There are also fears that the new forces, which will bring U.S. troops levels to about 68,000 around the country, will simply push the Taliban elsewhere.

Most of the newly arrived Marines are now stationed at Camp Leatherneck, a small base in the center of Helmand expanding by the hour as workers build permanent structures.

Some Marines have moved out to smaller outposts and are patrolling Helmand's deserts under a harsh summer sun.

Commanders warn that U.S. deaths are likely to increase this summer, the traditional fighting season in Afghanistan.

At least 70 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, according to an Associated Press count, a 75 percent increase over the 40 U.S. troop deaths through the first week in June last year.

A record 151 American forces died in Afghanistan in 2008.

The Afghan government controls some of the major towns and roads in Helmand, but most of the province of around 1 million is under the sway of the Taliban.

Thousands of British forces have been deployed in Helmand since mid-2006, but there have been too few to provide security and counterinsurgency operations for the entire province.

Taliban militants and the drug lords they protect are believed to reap hundreds of millions of dollars from Afghanistan's drug trade.

U.S. and NATO troops have stepped up attacks this year on drug labs after concluding the drug trade and the insurgency are intertwined.

"Child among 22 killed in Afghan violence"

Mon Jun 8, 7:29 am ET

KABUL (AFP) – Twenty Taliban militants were killed in a battle with police in southern Afghanistan Monday, while an Afghan boy was killed and two German soldiers wounded in attacks in the east, officials said.

Fighting erupted in the southern province of Zabul on Sunday after militants attacked a police patrol that had struck a roadside bomb, the interior ministry said.

One policeman was killed in the ambush, it said in a statement.

"The police responded to the attack and killed 20 enemies."

"The fighting lasted more than 10 hours," the statement said.

The fighters left their dead behind after retreating, it added.

Zabul is a flashpoint in the Taliban insurgency launched soon after the United States ousted the Taliban regime in an invasion at the end of 2001.

The insurgency has intensified since 2005.

In another attack, a bomb hidden in a tape recorder blew up in an electronics repair shop in a busy market in the eastern town of Khost on Monday and killed a 13-year-old boy, provincial officials said.

Two other people were superficially hurt in the blast in the market which sells music, they said.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bomb.

Khost has been attacked several times this year, with Islamist Taliban claiming the violence as part of their campaign against a government backed by international troops.

On Sunday, meanwhile, two German soldiers deployed as part of NATO's force in Afghanistan were wounded in a gun battle that followed a roadside bomb explosion in the northeastern part of the country, the force told AFP.

The soldiers suffered gunshot wounds during a firefight that erupted in the province of Kunduz after their vehicle struck an improvised bomb similar to those used by Taliban, a military spokesman said.

A Taliban spokesman called AFP from an unknown location to claim responsibility for the attack.

The United Nations also reported that unknown gunmen attacked the office of its Food and Agriculture Organisation in Kunduz, leaving two guards wounded.

The motive of the attack was unclear, spokeswoman Nilab Mubarez told reporters in Kabul.

Afghan security forces and about 70,000 mainly Western troops deployed to help defeat the Taliban are fighting insurgents almost daily in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the rebels are most active.

Violence has picked up in recent weeks amid concerns that poor security could jeopardise the August 20 presidential and provincial elections, for which Afghanistan's international allies have pledged thousands of extra troops.

"Blast near U.S. convoy wounds 49 Afghans: officials"

By Amin Jalili

9 JUNE 2009

ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A blast near a U.S. troop convoy in Afghanistan killed at least one child and wounded 49 civilians on Tuesday, officials said, and witnesses blamed a U.S. soldier for throwing a grenade into a crowd.

Abdul Jalal Jalal, chief of police in Kunar province, said officials were investigating whether the blast in the provincial capital Asadabad was caused by a grenade thrown by U.S. troops or by an insurgent attack.

A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul said he was checking the reports.

Several of the wounded and other witnesses told Reuters a U.S. soldier had thrown a grenade after the military convoy was stopped because a vehicle's tire had burst.

Civilian casualties caused by U.S. forces have become a major source of friction between the Afghan authorities and their U.S. allies, and have hurt public support even as the number of U.S. troops in the country more than doubles this year.

"I was on my way to school."

"Their tire burst, and then a soldier hurled a hand grenade from the convoy," said Abdul Wahab, 12, lying in a hospital bed with two shrapnel wounds in his leg.

Two other wounded victims at the Asadabad hospital gave similar accounts.

A 20-year-old shopkeeper near the scene, Umranullah, who uses only one name like many Afghans, also said a U.S. soldier from the convoy had thrown a grenade.

Asadabad hospital doctor Ehsanullah Fazli said most of the wounded were children.

Some were in critical condition, he said.

The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that procedures had been violated during an air strike last month in which the Afghan government says 140 civilians were killed.

Washington says 20-35 civilians were among 80-95 people killed, most of them Taliban fighters, in that air strike in western Farah province in early May.

(Additional reporting and writing by Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL; Editing by Peter Graff and Paul Tait)

OBAMA IS USING HIS FEDERAL STIMULATION MONEY TO SUPPLEMENT THE MILITARY BUDGET ...

And so ...

"Army closing some special care units"

By KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press Writer

Tue Jun 9, 5:00 pm ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Army plans to reduce the size of some of its 36 wounded warrior units by the end of the month and close three by October after tightening standards to stem a flood of patients, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The warrior transition units were created in 2007 to address reports of substandard care for wounded, ill and injured soldiers.

The number of soldiers in these units has dropped from a high of more than 12,000 last June to about 9,500 currently as the Army screened patients more closely.

The Army announced last month that the falling numbers meant it would close three units at installations in Kansas and Alabama and reduce the size of four others at posts in Kansas, Georgia, Washington and the Fort Campbell installation on the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

Two units in Virginia will merge into a larger one.

Robert Moore, a spokesman for the Warrior Transition Command, said Tuesday the size reductions are expected to be finished around July 1 and the closings around Oct. 1.

Commanders say the decrease is because the Army last year imposed stricter screening procedures for admitting soldiers into the units.

Previously, the Army automatically sent any ill or injured soldier who needed more than six months of recovery to a warrior transition unit.

The soldiers were assigned officers and enlisted leaders to manage their medical care and they were assisted by medical staff who helped them through recovery and rehabilitation.

But the result was a flood of patients into the units, some of whom had simple injuries like torn ligaments or needed routine surgery like appendectomies.

That detracted from the care of more serious cases, according to Col. Jimmie Keenan, the chief of staff who oversees the units for the Army.

"For those soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury that had more complex cases, resources were being pulled away," Keenan said in a news release.

The process was restricted last year to allow in only soldiers who needed help managing a complex medical case and who needed more than six months of recovery.

The new units came in the wake of revelations about poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., including shoddy housing and bureaucratic delays for outpatients there.

Army officials have said closing some and reducing the size of others should help ease staff shortages in the units.

The units are required to have a certain ratio of soldiers to medical and command staff and that will not change under the restructuring plans.

The unit at Fort Campbell was staffed to care for 1,000 soldiers, but staff will be reduced to handle no more than 800 soldiers.

Army officials said the staffing reductions still leave more than enough workers for the units' current population levels, allowing room if the number increases again.

Lt. Col. Natalie Lonkard, the commander of Fort Campbell's unit, said the number of soldiers in the unit decreased from nearly 800 last summer to 420 currently.

About a third of the soldiers have combat-related injuries and about 50 percent on average are able to return to active duty, she said.

"One of the things that is driving this decrease in the size of the warrior transition unit is the fact that we've put soldiers back out into their units to heal," said Lt. Col. Mike Heimall, a deputy commander at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital at Fort Campbell.

Heimall said reducing the size of the unit has allowed Fort Campbell to shift some of the medical staff to other areas.

He said these nurse case managers will work with soldiers who have injuries, but are still assigned to their original units.

Typically, those soldiers are left behind when their brigade deploys.

"One of the things that was going on in the Army was that we had an awful lot of folks in the physical disability system who were in units like the 101st Airborne Division and nobody was managing them," Heimall said.

"There was no forward progress."

Now the soldiers will have a nurse case manager at the installation that can help guide them through their medical care, he said.

The downsizing will not affect Fort Campbell's plans for a building complex on post for soldiers injured in battle making the switch back to active duty or out of the military.

The post got $43 million in economic stimulus funds for the project.
__

On the Net:

U.S. Army Warrior Transition Command: http://www.army.mil/info/organization/offices/eoh/wtc/

"Car bomb kills 15 in southern Shiite area in Iraq"

By HAMID AHMED, Associated Press Writer

10 JUNE 2009

BAGHDAD – A car bomb ripped through a market district Wednesday in a mainly Shiite area in southern Iraq, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, officials said.

The blast is the latest in a series of high-profile explosions that have raised concerns about a resurgence of violence as the U.S. military faces a June 30 deadline to withdraw from urban areas in Iraq.

The explosives-laden car was parked in the center of the commercial area in the town of Bathaa when it blew up about 9 a.m., according to the officials.

The officials gave the death toll on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to media.

They say at least 30 people were wounded.

The town is near Nasiriyah, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad.

The area has been the site of past violence — mainly fierce internal fighting between Shiite militia factions before a cease-fire took hold.

Also, a Nov. 12, 2003, bombing struck the military barracks of the Italian forces who were stationed in the area at the time, killing at least 19 Italians.

Dhi Qar province, of which Nasiriyah is the administrative capital, was the second province to be transferred from U.S.-led coalition control to the Iraqis in September 2006.

"Afghan clashes kill 12 insurgents, 1 soldier"

11 JUNE 2009

KABUL – Clashes in northern Afghanistan killed 12 insurgents and one Afghan soldier, the government said Thursday.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Wednesday's fighting spanned three villages in Baghlan province.

Provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhail said a combined international and Afghan force fought Taliban gunmen over the course of the day, eventually routing the militants from the area.

Meanwhile, NATO said its troops battled insurgents in western Baghdis on Wednesday.

The international military coalition said Afghan and NATO forces "killed and wounded a significant number of insurgents," but did not give figures.

No Afghan or NATO troops were killed, it said in a statement.

"Top Sunni lawmaker killed outside Baghdad mosque"

By HAMID AHMED, Associated Press Writer

12 JUNE 2009

BAGHDAD – The head of Iraq's main Sunni parliamentary bloc was killed in a bold daylight attack after delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in western Baghdad, raising fears that insurgents are trying to rekindle sectarian violence.

A gunman believed to be as young as 15 shot Harith al-Obeidi as he left the mosque and walked toward his nearby home, police said.

There were conflicting accounts about what happened next.

Guards at the scene said the assailant was chased a few hundred yards down the street, then detonated a grenade, killing himself and an undetermined number of pursuers.

But an Interior Ministry official said guards killed the attacker after he threw the grenade during a shootout.

At least four other people, including a worshipper, were killed and several others were wounded, according to the official, who read details from the police report on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

"While we were leaving the mosque we heard a gunshot fired, followed by an explosion," said Majid Hameed, a 50-year-old worshipper wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel.

"I blame the security forces for allowing gunmen to enter the neighborhood even though all entrances are blocked by checkpoints."

Al-Obeidi, who led the Iraqi Accordance Front, was known as a fierce advocate of prisoners' rights — a divisive issue in relations between the disaffected Sunni Muslim minority and the Shiite-led government.

He championed their cause to the end, saying in his sermon that "nobody dares to tell the ruler that such imprisonment is wrong."

The brazen shooting followed a spate of high-profile bombings that U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned are part of an effort by insurgents to re-ignite sectarian violence and undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who warned a day earlier that violence was likely to increase ahead of the parliamentary vote set for the end of January, promised an investigation into the attack.

"This cowardly crime is a futile attempt to incite sectarian rifts among the Iraqi people and to prove that terrorist organizations are still there after these organizations have received hard punches by our armed forces," he said in a statement read on Iraqi state TV.

Sunni lawmakers also blamed "terrorist and sectarian groups" trying to foment violence, saying al-Obeidi was on good terms with Iraq's fractured parties.

Accordance Front spokesman and fellow lawmaker Salim Abdullah also questioned how the attackers were able to penetrate the tight security in the neighborhood.

He alleged that al-Qaida in Iraq has again infiltrated the area.

Al-Obeidi's party is the Congress of the People of Iraq, one of three parties making up the Iraqi Accordance Front, which has 44 seats in Iraq's 275-member parliament.

The other two parties in the bloc are the Iraqi Islamic Party and the National Dialogue Council.

The lawmaker was chosen to lead the bloc in May after his predecessor, Ayad al-Samarraie, became parliamentary speaker.

Shatha al-Abousi, a fellow Sunni lawmaker and member of the parliamentary human rights committee, said al-Obeidi was 47 years old, had two wives and eight children.

He also was a university professor with a doctorate in Islamic studies and often gave mosque sermons on Friday, the traditional Islamic day of prayer.

"He was calling for national reconciliation."

"He was trying to unify all Iraqis," she said.

"Through his Friday sermons, he was calling for peace and unity."

"He also disclosed the crimes and torture taking place in Iraqi prisons."

The mainly Sunni neighborhood was one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Baghdad before local tribal leaders joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq two years ago, helping to lead to the overall decline in violence.

The persistent violence has raised concerns about the readiness of Iraqi forces to take over their own security as U.S. forces start to withdraw.

A U.S. commander in the northern city of Mosul announced that Iraqi police have arrested two of their own in connection with a Feb. 24 ambush on an American platoon at a police station that left one U.S. soldier dead.

The two suspects — believed to be an Iraqi police officer and a sergeant — opened fire on a U.S. patrol visiting one of the main Iraqi police training sites.

An American soldier and an interpreter were killed and five others were wounded in the attack.

The two men were arrested during a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid early Monday and are in the custody of Iraqi police, according to Army Col. Gary Volesky, who commands U.S. troops in northern Iraq's Ninevah province.

In other violence Friday, a bomb planted on a bicycle exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding nine others, according to police and hospital officials.
___

Associated Press Writer Chelsea J. Carter in Mosul contributed to this report.

"US mil: American soldier killed by bomb in Iraq - US military says American soldier killed by roadside bomb in Iraq"

Associated Press

Last updated: 3:45 a.m., Saturday, June 13, 2009

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

A statement says the Multi-National Corps -- Iraq soldier died Friday during combat operations in Baghdad.

Violence in Iraq has dramatically dropped off, though insurgents continue to target U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

Saturday's statement said the incident is under investigation and provided no further details.

The name of the soldier is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The death raises to at least 4,312 members of the U.S. military who have died in Iraq since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

THE BUM'S RUSH BEGINS ...

"US officer in Baghdad finds loss of leverage - For US officer in north Baghdad district, pullout from the city brings loss of leverage"

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:26 p.m., Thursday, June 11, 2009

BAGHDAD -- The American captain was visibly irritated as local officials pressed him to move his vehicles away from the meeting place to allow traffic to pass.

Finally, he walked out of the meeting -- and none of the Iraqis asked why.

Months before, Capt. Nathan Williams was treated with respect bordering on reverence.

Iraqi officials with whom he worked in Baghdad's Hurriyah district sought his opinion and deferred to his ideas.

But as the U.S. military pulls back from Baghdad and other cities ahead of a June 30 deadline, American commanders like Williams are rapidly losing influence in neighborhoods they once ruled.

That became clear at the weekend meeting of the Hurriyah district council.

Williams, 28, of Raleigh, N.C., was not greeted with the same enthusiasm he received during previous council meetings during his seven months as commander of a military outpost at Hurriyah.

This time, no one sought his opinion on the issues under discussion.

And when he left, the meeting continued as if he were never there.

Williams, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment based at Fort Riley, Kan., said the mood change was a sign that Iraqis are depending less and less on the Americans -- a longtime U.S. goal.

"I want you all to know that I will keep coming to see you until the end of the month," Williams told the 15 councilors before he left the room.

"Should you need us after that, let us know and we will come to see you."

Williams summed up the subtle changes in the relationship between the Americans and the Iraqis: "They deal with their own problems now, and that is really where we want them to be."

His 150-member infantry company left Hurriyah on May 30, one month ahead of the deadline for U.S. combat troops to pull out of Iraqi cities.

Williams and his troops have since focused on staying engaged in Hurriyah.

They commute to Hurriyah from their new home at Camp Victory, a sprawling base near Baghdad's airport about six miles away.

Williams' soldiers still visit Hurriyah every day -- a trip that takes about a half hour.

They give out cards with telephone numbers for residents to call if they want to report suspicious activity or individuals.

All that will change at the end of this month.

After that, they will go there only if the Iraqis ask for help.

"We will not stage routine joint patrols with the Americans in Hurriyah," said Maj. Hussein al-Qaissy, the district's Iraqi army commander.

"We will ask them to come only in an emergency."

Clearly, the Iraqis are relishing their new role, showing less enthusiasm for responding to American requests.

On one recent afternoon, Williams and one of his officers spent 10 tense minutes trying to persuade an Iraqi army major to assign a handful of soldiers to join them on a foot patrol.

The Iraqi officer eventually gave in.

During a patrol last weekend, Sgt. 1st Class Gary Frey pleaded with every Iraqi army soldier he encountered to tell him if he needed anything.

"We will be here in a heartbeat if you need anything," Frey, 36 of Quincy, Ill., told an Iraqi soldier standing next to an armored carrier at a checkpoint.

Both al-Qaissy and Williams express confidence that the Iraqis can maintain security in Hurriyah, scene of some of the most vicious Shiite-Sunni fighting three years ago.

Shiite militiamen who once ruled Hurriyah were defeated by U.S. and Iraqi forces last year.

A concrete wall rings Hurriyah, sheltering it from car bombs, the signature attack of Sunni Muslim militants.

Incidents of sectarian violence have been negligible.

However, the threat persists.

Al-Qaissy says Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen remain at Hurriyah and may be tempted to strike again with the Americans gone.

He also acknowledges that his capabilities are hampered by inadequate resources, including a shortage of working vehicles.

The departure of Williams and his soldiers is also causing some anxiety among residents.

"What can I say?"

"Your presence here is better for us," Kareem Mohsen, 77, who runs a small grocery store, told Williams while on a recent patrol.

"But only time will tell whether the Iraqis can do your job."

ON ONE DAY, THIS SUNNI DUDE STANDS UP IN THE IRAQI PARLIAMENT AND CALLS FOR AN INVESTIGATION OF IRAQI INTERIOR AND DEFENSE MINISTRY OFFICALS IN CONNECTION WITH ALLEGATIONS OF TORTURE IN IRAQI JAILS ....

AND THE NEXT DAY ....

al QAIDA IN IRAQ KILLS THE DUDE ....

HMMMMMM ....

HOW VERY HANDY THAT WAS FOR THE IRAQI INTERIOR AND DEFENSE MINISTRY OFFICALS ACCUSED IN CONNECTION WITH ALLEGATIONS OF TORTURE IN IRAQI JAILS ....

And so ...

"Iraq blames al-Qaida for Sunni killing - Interior Ministry blames al-Qaida in Iraq for killing of prominent Sunni lawmaker in Baghdad"

Associated Press

Last updated: 7:16 a.m., Saturday, June 13, 2009

BAGHDAD -- The Interior Ministry says al-Qaida in Iraq is to blame for the killing of a prominent Sunni lawmaker in Baghdad.

The announcement comes as Iraqi leaders attended a funeral service Saturday in a show of solidarity for Harith al-Obeidi.

Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told The Associated Press the evidence so far indicates al-Qaida in Iraq was behind the assassination.

But he declined to elaborate while the investigation is ongoing.

Al-Obeidi, the leader of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, was shot to death as he left a mosque following Friday prayers.

Shiite and Sunni politicians say the brazen daylight killing was the latest strike in a bid to stoke sectarian violence ahead of national elections.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's top leaders in a show of solidarity attended the funeral Saturday of a prominent Sunni lawmaker assassinated outside a mosque, in an attack seen as an attempt to destabilize sectarian relations in the country.

The funeral for Harith al-Obeidi, the leader of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, was held at Baghdad's Convention Center a day after he was gunned down leaving a mosque after delivering a sermon.

There have been no immediate claims of responsibility for the killing, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered an investigation into the attack.

During the funeral, which was broadcast on all of Iraq's television stations, lawmakers vowed the killing would not set back security gains in Iraq.

"His assassination is an attempt to embarrass al-Maliki's government, the reconciliation project and renew the chaos and turmoil of the past," said Sheik Kheir-Allah al-Basri, a Shiite lawmaker.

Al-Obeidi, 47, the moderate leader of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament was killed a day after colleagues said he called on parliament to summon interior and defense ministry officials to answer allegations of torture in Iraqi jails.

Sunni lawmaker Dhafir al-Ani applauded al-Obeidi's political moderation.

"Al-Obeidi established a school of moderation inside the parliament."

"He expressed his position with courage and without any fear," he said.

Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi told Iraqiya TV after the funeral that al-Obeidi was "the martyr of the whole of Iraq."

"Al-Obeidi was one of the pillars of the political process and the political moderation."

"He had an important role in parliament," Abdul-Mahdi said.

A gunman attacked al-Obeidi and a bodyguard in a mosque courtyard in western Baghdad, and then killed himself after detonating a grenade as he tried to flee, according to Iraqi officials.

Two caskets -- al-Obeidi and his bodyguard -- were carried outside the Convention Center by an Iraqi military honor guard.

Al-Obeidi took the helm of the Iraqi Accordance Front -- which holds 44 seats in the 275-member parliament -- in May after his predecessor Ayad al-Samarraie became the parliamentary speaker.

His death leaves a power vacuum in the three-party bloc at a crucial time as politicians and parties are jockeying for power ahead of next January's elections.

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Associated Press Writer Saad Abdul-Kadir contributed to this report.

"Analysis: US must limit Afghan civilian deaths"

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer

Sat Jun 13, 9:46 am ET

WASHINGTON – The big goals of the new American general taking charge of the war in Afghanistan start with fixing a problem that bedeviled the man he is replacing: the repeated, inadvertent killing of civilians.

Stanley McChrystal, the four-star Army general picked to provide the fresh thinking that Pentagon chief Robert Gates says is needed to win the war, will have at least one important new tool at his disposal — some 21,000 additional U.S. ground troops.

The expanded presence of American forces may reduce the need for deadly airstrikes that can be effective in smashing Taliban fighters but all too frequently kill or maim civilians.

McChrystal is due in the capital, Kabul, this weekend, replacing Gen. David McKiernan, whom Gates fired.

McChrystal stopped at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday to join Gates in consulting with allied defense ministers about NATO's role in Afghanistan.

Gates emphasized the imperative of avoiding civilian casualties, calling the deaths "one of our greatest strategic vulnerabilities."

In his few public comments, McChrystal also has highlighted the problem.

McChrystal says he intends to run a classic counterinsurgency campaign.

That means another of his key objectives will be to create distance between local Afghans and the hardcore Taliban fighters in order to win local support and gain better intelligence.

And he will aim to make better use of nonmilitary tools such as U.S. and other foreign civilian resources to improve basic government services.

Robert Scales, a retired Army two-star general who has advised U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, said in an interview Friday that he believes McChrystal will focus mainly on shifting emphasis from killing Taliban and al-Qaida fighters to protecting Afghans from those fighters — and from unintended U.S. bombings.

"The metric has changed."

"The metric is no longer how much territory in Afghanistan do we control, but how effective are we in securing the people," Scales said.

"Not how many bad guys do we kill or how many American casualties do we suffer, but how few Afghans are killed — by both the bad guys and by us."

Just how McChrystal refocuses the military's mission may become more apparent when he completes the two-month assessment that Gates asked him to undertake upon his arrival in Kabul.

With that assessment, McChrystal will then be expected to spell out how he intends to run the war.

Some broad elements are already clear.

Among them:

_A revamped U.S.-led command structure.

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, believes it will give McChrystal additional authority and more ability to implement the strategy that President Barack Obama announced in late March.

For the first time, the U.S. commander will have a three-star American deputy to take more of the day-to-day burden.

The three-star is Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, who has been serving as Gates' top military assistant.

_More use of civilian experts, including U.S. agricultural specialists, to develop viable alternatives to the illicit poppy-growing business that Washington and its allies say is helping finance the Taliban resistance.

Obama promised a "civilian surge" to help the Afghan government build democratic foundations.

And he said the U.S. would seek a "new compact" with the government to crack down on corruption.

• A "dream team" of U.S. military officers steeped in counterinsurgency and Afghanistan experience and expertise.

In a reflection of the heightened priority that the Obama administration is giving Afghanistan, McChrystal was told he could pick any top U.S. assistants he wanted to help him in Kabul.

Among them: Navy Rear Adm. Greg Smith, a seasoned public affairs specialist who will oversee a strengthened effort to communicate the allies' objectives and activities and to counter Taliban messages.

_An acceleration of the long, slow process of developing Afghan army and police forces.

This will be one of the keys to bolstering the legitimacy of the central government and eventually enabling foreign forces to leave.

The current goal of creating 134,000 Afghan forces may be doubled in coming years.

McChrystal also faces many unknowns, including the outcome of the Afghans' national election in August and the impact of the Pakistani army's intensified offensive against Taliban insurgency on their side of the border.

McChrystal will be part of an overhauled U.S. leadership team.

It includes Karl Eikenberry, who retired from the Army as a three-star general in order to become U.S. ambassador to Kabul.

He arrived last month.

Another new face is Navy Adm. James Stavridis, who was confirmed this week by the Senate as the new NATO commander in Europe.

About half the coalition troops in Afghanistan are NATO soldiers.

Stavridis will play a role in trying to persuade European government to provide more resources there.

Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War, said McChrystal's arrival in Kabul is unlikely to result in immediate, measurable changes in how the coalition goes about fighting the war.

She expects him to take several months to analyze conditions and build a plan for improving operations.

Although McChrystal is best known for his experience in leading special operations forces like Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets, that does not necessarily mean he will find a bigger or different role for those elite, shadowy forces in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, his background makes him well-suited to ensuring that they are put to optimal use.
___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Robert Burns has covered national security and military affairs for The Associated Press since 1990.

Anyone wishing to see what is to be must consider what has been: all the things of this world in every era have their counterparts in ancient times.

- Machiavelli

"Suspected US missile strike kills 5 in Pakistan"

By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD, Associated Press Writer

14 JUNE 2009

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike killed at least five people Sunday in a tribal region where Pakistan's top Taliban commander is based, intelligence officials said, breaking a lull in such attacks and posing a test for growing anti-Taliban sentiment in the country.

The strike came as violence raged elsewhere in the volatile northwest regions bordering Afghanistan: a bombing at a market killed at least eight people, while officials said ongoing clashes between the Taliban and security forces killed at least 20 militants in a tribal region supposedly cleared of insurgents months ago.

Local media have reported that the Taliban claimed responsibility for several recent attacks in Pakistan, including one that killed a moderate cleric, calling the assaults revenge for the army's offensive in the northwestern Swat Valley.

The revenge tactics seem to have bolstered growing anti-Taliban sentiment in Pakistan, something the U.S. hopes will translate into support for sustained military action against extremists who use Pakistani soil to plot attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.

U.S. missile strikes could undermine that sentiment because they are deeply unpopular among Pakistanis.

The government has publicly protested such strikes, fired by unmanned drone aircraft, saying they violate the country's sovereignty, even though many analysts suspect the two countries have struck a secret deal to facilitate the attacks.

The latest strike occurred in South Waziristan, hitting three vehicles in an area not far from Makeen, a village considered a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed the attack on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The last missile strike was in mid-May.

South Waziristan, which also is an al-Qaida stronghold, is believed to be the target of Pakistan's next offensive against militants.

Mehsud has been linked to bombings on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and U.S. defense officials said last week that Pakistan intends to go after him, though no timeframe was given.

The market bombing Sunday occurred in Dera Ismail Khan, a town not far from South Waziristan.

Government official Inayat Ullah said 11 to 13 pounds (5 to 6 kilograms) of explosives were planted in a fruit vendor's hand-pulled cart.

Police official Mohammad Iqbal put the death toll at eight, with 20 wounded.

At a hospital where some of the wounded were taken, wails and cries filled the air.

"It was crowded there when something big exploded," said 30-year-old Ilyas Ahmad, whose legs were wounded.

"It was a big noise."

"Everybody was crying."

"Bodies were lying there."

"People were lying around blood."

Iqbal said the attack had to be a response to the Swat operation.

On Saturday, senior provincial minister Bashir Bilour said the latest attacks could also be the work of militants in Waziristan ahead of "an imminent army operation" in the region.

Fighting on too many fronts could tax Pakistan's military, not to mention government resources.

Furthermore, reports of clashes in Bajur tribal region underscore the challenges facing the military in holding territory it claims to have cleared.

Pakistani security forces used jets, helicopters and artillery to pound suspected Taliban hideouts in Bajur over the weekend.

Zakir Hussain Afridi, the top government official for Bajur, said the fighting was in the Charmang valley, a stretch he described as largely under Taliban control.

Jamil Khan, his deputy, put the militant death toll at 20 since Friday.

Bajur was the main theater of operations against the militants before Swat.

After some six months of fighting, the army said in February that the Taliban there had been defeated.

But reports have occasionally surfaced since then of ongoing militant activity.

Afridi told The Associated Press that the military had used airstrikes in the past in Charmang but that there were no ground troops — army or paramilitary — in that part of Bajur.

Pakistan had relied heavily on local tribes in Bajur to raise their own militias to force out local Taliban, but Afridi said that concept had not taken off well in Charmang.

Military officials could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.

The military says its operation dating to late April has killed more than 1,300 militants in Swat and surrounding areas.

But the Swat offensive has already displaced more than 2 million civilians, a huge humanitarian test for Pakistan.

More battles along the Afghan border could swell that number.
___

Associated Press writers Habib Khan in Khar and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report.

"Report: Feud, falsehoods inspired US Afghan attack - British TV report: Feud, falsehoods inspired US attack that killed scores in Afghan village"

Associated Press

Last updated: 5:15 a.m., Sunday, June 14, 2009

LONDON -- A British television report to be broadcast on Monday says American forces who killed scores of people last August in Azizabad, western Afghanistan, attacked the village on the basis of false allegations inspired by a blood feud with a neighboring community.

An hour-long, in-depth documentary, previewed by The Associated Press and to be broadcast by Channel 4, includes scenes from a Herat provincial court trial in which a leader from the rival village was sentenced to death for murder for having given false information leading to the deaths of 91 innocent Azizabad civilians.

Despite that court ruling, the U.S. Central Command maintains its position that the Americans killed 22 Taliban fighters, along with only 33 civilians.

The British broadcaster will also report that U.S. Special Forces are not cooperating with local police seeking three men from Kalask, the rival village, in the torture death of an Azizabad man.

The suspects are guards at the U.S. base in nearby Shindand.

The report's producer-director and narrator, Tom Roberts, says provincial officials believe U.S. forces have taken sides in the inter-village feud, which apparently stems from competition for Shindand base jobs.

The Azizabad attack badly strained U.S. relations with its Afghan ally, as has a more recent U.S. attack, in Farah province on May 4-5, when Afghan officials say 140 villagers were killed.

U.S. officials say no more than 30 civilians died, along with 60 to 65 militants.

After the ground and air assault by U.S. and Afghan forces last Aug. 22 on Azizabad, the U.S. military said 30 militants were killed and no civilians.

It later acknowledged five civilian deaths.

Still later, a Central Command investigative report raised the civilian toll to 33.

Investigations by the Afghan government and the United Nations, meanwhile, found that some 90 civilians were killed.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said no Taliban were killed, and the attack was based on "total misinformation" that enemy were present in Azizabad.

At the trial in March, a panel of judges found Kalask village's Mohammed Nader guilty of murder, saying he knowingly gave U.S. forces false information about Azizabad.

Residents had testified to seeing Nader with the raiders that night.

His conviction and death sentence are on appeal.

Local police appearing in the Channel 4 report also describe an ambush of Azizabad men by Kalask residents last December, when an Azizabad man was killed, fellow villagers rushed to the rescue, and Shindand base guards also arrived on the scene.

One Azizabad man was then seized and taken away in a convoy of U.S. Special Forces and Afghan guards, the police say.

Four hours later, they say, the Americans delivered the man's body to an Afghan army headquarters.

An autopsy found he had been tortured, Channel 4 reports.

Since then, authorities have been unable to get U.S. cooperation in disarming and handing over three Afghan guards suspected in the man's death, the report says.

Asked to comment on these elements of the TV report, spokesman Maj. John H. Redfield said the Central Command "stands by" its earlier investigation.

Though asked specifically about the wanted men, he did not address the issue.

"Pakistan to launch offensive against Taliban chief - Officials say Pakistan to launch army operation against Taliban chief in tribal region"

By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:56 p.m., Sunday, June 14, 2009

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- Pakistan said it will pursue an army operation against the country's top Taliban commander, a feared militant based in a tribal region along the Afghan border where a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five people Sunday.

The announcement came as violence raged in other parts of the volatile northwest.

A bombing at a market killed at least eight people, while officials said clashes between the Taliban and security forces killed at least 20 militants in a tribal area supposedly cleared of insurgents months ago.

Over the past month and a half, as Pakistan has pursued an offensive against militants in the Swat Valley, rumors have swirled that it had plans to go into the South Waziristan tribal area to target the country's most powerful Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud.

Sporadic clashes between security forces and militants in the region bolstered the reports.

Clearing out South Waziristan would please the U.S., which wants Pakistan to eliminate sanctuaries for militants implicated in attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.

Late Sunday, the governor of North West Frontier Province told reporters in Islamabad the decision had been made to "take army action against terrorists in Waziristan."

"The forces have been ordered to start the operation," Owais Ghani said.

He did not specify an exact start date, but implied that the offensive had already begun.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press:

"The government has made the announcement."

"We will give a comment after evaluating the orders."

South Waziristan, a rugged, remote region, has not only been a Taliban hide-out but also a base for al-Qaida and a rumored home of Osama bin Laden.

Clearing it and North Waziristan of militants is considered critical for taking the steam out of the insurgency in Pakistan and undermining the one in Afghanistan.

But in many ways, it would be a harder fight than in Swat, not least because the porous border with Afghanistan could make it easier for militants on the run to escape the army's sights.

A new offensive could also mean more displaced civilians in Pakistan, already struggling to deal with more than 2 million who fled their homes in Swat and surrounding districts.

Pakistan's decision comes as public opinion has shifted against the Taliban, who have been blamed or have claimed responsibility for a series of bloody attacks in recent weeks, including one that killed a moderate cleric and another that devastated a luxury hotel in Peshawar.

U.S. missile strikes could undermine that sentiment because they are deeply unpopular among Pakistanis.

The latest suspected strike -- the first since mid-May -- occurred in South Waziristan, hitting three vehicles in an area not far from Makeen, a village considered a Mehsud stronghold.

The identities of the five fatalities were not certain.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed the attack on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The government has publicly protested such strikes, saying they violate the country's sovereignty, even though many analysts suspect the two countries have struck a secret deal to facilitate the attacks.

In recent weeks, militants and security forces have repeatedly skirmished in South Waziristan, though the army has insisted it is merely responding to attacks, not pursuing a new offensive.

In a statement, the army said it killed some 30 militants in South Waziristan in strikes Saturday aimed in part at avenging the death of cleric Sarfraz Naeemi.

Naeemi, killed in a suicide bombing Friday, had denounced the Taliban.

The market bombing Sunday occurred in Dera Ismail Khan, a town not far from South Waziristan.

Government official Inayat Ullah said 11 to 13 pounds (5 to 6 kilograms) of explosives were planted in a fruit vendor's hand-pulled cart.

Police official Mohammad Iqbal put the death toll at eight, with 20 wounded.

At a hospital where some of the wounded were taken, wails and cries filled the air.

"It was crowded there when something big exploded," said 30-year-old Ilyas Ahmad, whose legs were wounded.

"It was a big noise."

"Everybody was crying."

"Bodies were lying there."

"People were lying around blood."

A Taliban commander, Qari Hussain Ahmad, blamed the blast on Pakistani intelligence agencies, saying the government was carrying out such acts to legitimize an operation in Waziristan.

"They want to malign us."

"They want to use killings of innocent citizens against us," Hussain told The Associated Press by phone from an undisclosed location.

Fighting on too many fronts could tax Pakistan's military, not to mention government resources.

The latest clashes in the Bajur tribal region underscore the challenges facing the military in holding territory it claims to have cleared.

Pakistani security forces used jets, helicopters and artillery to pound suspected Taliban hide-outs in Bajur over the weekend.

Zakir Hussain Afridi, the top government official for Bajur, said the fighting was in the Charmang valley, a stretch he described as largely under Taliban control.

Jamil Khan, his deputy, put the militant death toll at 20 since Friday.

Bajur was the main theater of operations against the militants before Swat.

After some six months of fighting, the army said in February that the Taliban there had been defeated.

But there have been occasional reports since then of ongoing militant activity.

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Associated Press writers Habib Khan in Khar and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report.

I BET GENERAL McCHRYSTAL GAVE HAMID KARZAI A LITTLE PAT ON THE HEAD IN RETURN AND THEN TOLD HIM TO GET BACK DOWN IN HIS BUNKER AND KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT ....

And so .....

"Karzai warns new US commander over civilian deaths - Karzai tells incoming US commander in Afghanistan to protect civilians"

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press

Last updated: 11:25 a.m., Sunday, June 14, 2009

KABUL -- President Hamid Karzai told the incoming commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Sunday that the most important part of his new mission was to protect Afghan civilians.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes up his command on Monday.

The four-star U.S. general, a former special forces commander, is expected to bring a fresh approach to an increasingly violent eight-year war.

President Barack Obama has increased the U.S. focus on Afghanistan this year, ordering 21,000 additional troops to the country as the U.S. military begins to pull out of Iraq.

Civilian casualties have long been a point of friction between Karzai and the U.S., and the early warning reflects Karzai's impatience over the continued killings of Afghan villagers during military operations.

The Afghan government "will fully cooperate with you toward achieving this very important goal" of protecting civilians, Karzai's office said in a statement after his first meeting with McChrystal.

McChrystal replaces Gen. David McKiernan, who was fired by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates one year into his two-year assignment.

McChrystal, a former commanding general of the Joint Special Operations Command, will lead the largest international force in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001.

A record 56,000 U.S. troops are in the country, alongside 32,000 NATO-led forces.

During his confirmation hearing in Washington earlier this month, McChrystal said his measure of effectiveness "will not be enemy killed."

"It will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence," he said.

On Sunday, McChrystal assured Karzai that he would take "practical measures to prevent civilian casualties during counterinsurgency operations," Karzai's office said.

In early May, dozens of civilians were killed when U.S. and Afghan troops backed by U.S. fighter aircraft battled militants in southwestern Farah province.

The Afghan government says 140 civilians died, while an Afghan human rights group says around 100 were killed.

The U.S., however, says no more than 30 civilians were killed, and 60 to 65 militants.

In recent weeks, thousands of new U.S. troops have poured into the most violent province, Helmand, in an effort to stamp out an insurgency that has a strong hold in the world's main opium-poppy growing region.

The governor of Helmand said Sunday that the government currently controls only eight of the province's 13 districts.

Gov. Gulab Mangal said the government has no control in three districts at the northern end of the province and two in the south.

He said he hopes Afghan and NATO security forces can implement the rule of law in those regions in coming weeks.

It appears an optimistic assessment, given the levels of violence and lawlessness that still prevail in Afghanistan's largest province, three years after NATO forces first deployed there.

Thousands of British troops have struggled to contain the insurgents.

Last month they were joined by thousands of U.S. Marines to help them extend the government's reach.

In the province's latest violence, a roadside bomb blast killed two civilians and wounded five others in Helmand's Gereshk district, said Doud Ahmadi, spokesman for Mangal.

The blast occurred as a police vehicle was passing by, but there were no reports police casualties, he said.

Drug lords and Taliban militants are believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the narcotics trade centered in Helmand.

Mangal predicted that the province's poppy crop would drop this year, but didn't say by how much.

Meanwhile, Karzai called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday to congratulate him on his victory in his country's presidential election, Karzai's office said.

The Afghan president, who faces his own electoral fight on Aug. 20, said that relations between Afghanistan and its western neighbor "expanded" during Ahmadinejad's time in office and that he hoped ties would continue to strengthen.

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Associated Press reporters Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez contributed to this report from Kabul.

"US Gen. McChrystal takes command in Afghanistan"

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

15 JUNE 2009

KABUL – Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a four-star American general with a long history in special operations, took charge of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Monday, a change of command the Pentagon hopes will turn the tide in an increasingly violent eight-year war.

McChrystal took command from Gen. David McKiernan during a low-key ceremony at the heavily fortified headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in central Kabul.

McKiernan was fired last month by Defense Secretary Robert Gates one year into a two-year assignment.

McChrystal, a former commanding general of the Joint Special Operations Command, is expected to bring a more unconventional approach to a war that has turned increasingly violent the last three years.

"The Afghan people are at the center of our mission."

"In reality, they are the mission."

"We must protect them from violence, whatever its nature."

"We must respect their religion and traditions," McChrystal said.

"But while operating with care, we will not be timid."

McChrystal will command the largest international force ever in Afghanistan.

A record 56,000 U.S. troops are in the country, alongside 32,000 forces from 41 other countries.

American troops have poured into Helmand province the last several weeks in an effort to stamp out an insurgency that has a strong hold in the world's largest opium-poppy growing region.

McChrystal met with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, who warned the American general that the "most important element of the mission" is to protect Afghan civilians.

Civilian casualties during military operations have long been a point of friction between Karzai and the U.S.

The most contentious examples of civilian deaths in U.S. military operations in recent years have involved U.S. Special Operations Forces, which McChrystal used to command.

The four-star general has already pledged to reduce the number of Afghan villagers killed in fighting, saying he intends to review U.S. and allied operating procedures with an eye to minimizing civilian deaths.

"Although I expect stiff fighting ahead, the measure of effectiveness will not be enemy killed."

"It will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence," he said during testimony before Congress this month.

He also said that if he could obtain more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, it would sharpen the precision of allied attacks, thereby avoiding unwanted casualties.

Militant attacks have risen steadily in the last three years and have reached a new high.

U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said Afghanistan saw 400 insurgent attacks during the first week of June.

In comparison, there were less than 50 attacks per week in January 2004.

"Americans transferred from Iraqi to US custody - Iraq: 2 detained US contractors transferred to American custody, embassy says"

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:05 p.m., Sunday, June 14, 2009

BAGHDAD -- Two American contractors were transferred Sunday from Iraqi to U.S. custody, the U.S. Embassy said, stressing that Iraqi authorities requested the move in line with a security pact that took effect this year.

The men have been held since June 3 when they were detained with three other Americans by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces as part of an investigation into the stabbing death of a fellow contractor.

The other three have been released on bond.

But the two others were transferred to a U.S. military facility and "remain in custody pursuant to Iraqi judicial orders," embassy spokesman James Fennell told The Associated Press.

The five have been cleared of any link to James Kitterman's killing but face an ongoing investigation into unrelated charges.

Kitterman, 60, of Houston, was found dead in his car on May 22 in Baghdad's protected Green Zone.

He had been blindfolded, bound and stabbed.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said the five were detained in a raid that was part of the investigation into the killing.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh has said the five contractors have been cleared of any link to the slaying but separate investigations were under way on drug and weapons charges.

Corporate Training Unlimited, a Fayetteville, North Carolina-based security company, has confirmed that its owner, Donald Feeney Jr., was freed on Thursday.

Feeney's son, Don Feeney III, was one of two others released Friday, according to his brother, John Feeney, who wasn't sure of the name of the other contractor released.

The U.S.-Iraqi security pact that took effect on Jan. 1 lifted the immunity that had been enjoyed by American contractors in Iraq for much of the six-year war.

The move was provoked by outrage over a deadly September 2007 shooting in Baghdad involving another North Carolina security firm, Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe.

The agreement also set a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from urban areas by the end of this month and from the entire country by 2012.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned that violence was likely to rise as militants try to undermine confidence in the government ahead of the U.S. withdrawal deadlines and national parliamentary elections set for Jan. 30.

Seven U.S.-allied Sunni fighters were killed by gunmen in separate attacks Sunday north of Baghdad.

Six of the men were killed when gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying them west from the town of Mandali near the Iranian border.

Sheik Talab al-Nidawi said the slain men were from his tribe and confirmed their killings.

The attackers intercepted the men as they were traveling to the city of Balad Ruz, where their group was headquartered, to discuss salaries and other issues, he said.

"I feel bitter over the targeting of those trying to spread peace and security in the area, but we will keep chasing the terrorists wherever they are," he said.

Another Sunni guard was killed and three others wounded when gunmen opened fire on their checkpoint in Tarmiyah, a local police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

The slain men were members of Awakening Councils, armed groups that have joined forces with the Americans and the Iraqi government to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.

The groups have been key to a drastic drop in violence and have frequently been targeted by insurgents.

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Associated Press Writer Mazin Yahya contributed to this report.

"US commander: US to stick to Iraq withdrawal date"

By CHELSEA J. CARTER and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers

15 JUNE 2009

BAGHDAD – The top U.S. commander in Iraq said Monday that he remains "absolutely committed" to pulling back all combat troops from urban areas by the end of the month, as provided for in a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement.

Gen. Ray Odierno said a limited number of advisers and trainers will remain in the cities to work with Iraqi security forces, leaving unanswered questions about how many U.S. troops would remain and where they would be located.

"We will not get into any specific numbers, but it is a very small number," Odierno told a joint news conference with key Iraqi officials.

Odierno said the pull back of combat troops would also extend to the northern city of Mosul, where Sunni insurgents still pose a threat.

Earlier this year, he said Mosul might be one of the cities where combat troops might remain.

Odierno said violence and tensions in Mosul have declined.

"I feel much more comfortable with the situation in Mosul now," Odierno said.

Under the Iraqi-U.S. security pact, American combat troops must withdraw by June 30 with all U.S. forces out of the country by the end of 2011.

President Barack Obama has said all combat troops will leave Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, leaving up to 50,000 troops in training and advising roles.

The withdrawal from the cities will be a major test for Iraq's army and police, which failed to stem a wave of Shiite-Sunni slaughter in 2006.

That prompted the U.S. troop surge of 2007 which is widely credited with quelling the violence.

Many Iraqis are happy to see foreign soldiers off their streets but fear their own security forces may not be up to the challenge.

Iraqi spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh called June 30 a historic day that "will be written in Iraqi history."

"The American troops will complete withdrawal by leaving some technical limited members for training purposes of Iraqi government," al-Dabbagh said.

He also said the U.S. role in Iraq would be limited.

"There will be no combat missions unless by the invitation of the Iraqi government," al-Dabbagh said.

Violence has declined dramatically in Iraq, though sporadic attacks with high body counts continue to plague the country.

During the press conference, Odierno also said the number of foreign fighters coming into Iraq has dropped in the past 10 months to "just a trickle."

Odierno credited the decline to better security along Iraq's borders and efforts by Iraq's neighbors including Syria to curb illegal traffic.

The security agreement also requires the U.S. to release all detainees or transfer them to Iraqi custody by the end of the year.

Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi said the U.S. has released more than 3,000 detainees and handed over 750 more to Iraqi authorities.

Detainees loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have begun a hunger strike to protest alleged abuse in Iraqi prisons, according to the spokesman of the Sadrist movement, Salah al-Obeidi, who is unrelated to the defense minister.

More than 300 detainees from al-Sadr's movement began a hunger strike Sunday at the Rusafa prison in eastern Baghdad, he said.

Complaints about mistreatment of inmates in Iraqi prisons gained widespread attention last week when a Sunni lawmaker who was a champion of prisoner rights was killed after delivering a sermon at a Baghdad mosque.

They're hoping to draw attention to their plight and force Iraqi officials "to find solutions for their suffering inside the prison," al-Obeidi said.

Al-Obeidi said most of the detainees have been held without charge for at least a year.

"Their cases are still unsettled," he said.

"Some officers demand bribes to complete their cases and release them."

Later Monday, the Iraqi army's Baghdad command announced that four judges would be sent to the Rusafa prison to look into detainee complaints.

"Pakistan prepares offensive on Taliban stronghold"

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

16 JUNE 2009

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's army launched airstrikes and ferried in tanks and artillery as it confirmed Tuesday that it was preparing a major offensive against insurgents in al-Qaida and the Taliban's safest haven along the Afghan border.

The highly anticipated military operation in South Waziristan is seen as a potential turning point in the yearslong and sometimes half-hearted fight against militancy in Pakistan.

It could also help curb Taliban attacks on Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

But the offensive in the lawless tribal region will also be the toughest yet for Pakistan's military, testing both its fighting capability and the government's will to see it through, analysts said.

Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the military had received executive orders from the government to begin operations against Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, whose base is in South Waziristan.

"The necessary measures and steps which are part of a preliminary phase of the operation, the preparatory phase of the operation, that has commenced," Abbas told a news conference.

But Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira stressed that the operation "has not been officially started."

They declined to give more details, citing operational secrecy.

Convoys of military trucks carrying tanks and artillery were seen Tuesday in the towns of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank, near South Waziristan.

Intelligence officials said they were part of the buildup for the operation against Mehsud.

In recent days, the military has shelled and launched airstrikes in both South Waziristan and neighboring Bannu, although so far there has not been large-scale fighting with the militants.

On Tuesday, the army shelled suspected militant hideouts in three villages in South Waziristan in response to attacks on two military checkpoints, and helicopter gunships targeted Mehsud hide-outs in the region, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

One official called the attacks "surgical strikes" ahead of the main operation.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose information to the media.

The military buildup comes as the army says it is entering the final stages of a major operation against the Taliban in the northwestern Swat Valley, which has triggered a wave of retaliatory attacks by militants across Pakistan that have been blamed on Mehsud.

More than 100 people have died since late May in suicide bombings on targets including police and security buildings, mosques and a hotel catering to foreigners.

The attacks have fueled anti-Taliban sentiment in Pakistan that in turn has emboldened the politically weak government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

A military assault in South Waziristan would likely trigger an escalation in the attacks — something the government is bracing for.

"The risk of lives is there — we have to give sacrifices, we have to pay this price and the nation is ready to give this price to get rid of this menace," Kaira said.

The slow start to the offensive may indicate the government is talking it up before launching it to allow civilians time to flee.

The Swat offensive displaced more than 2 million people.

Thousands of residents have already fled Waziristan, local officials and refugees say, and are most are staying with extended family.

Aid agencies have warned that the humanitarian crisis in Pakistan's northwest could worsen if fighting spreads in the tribal belt.

The armed forces may also need more time to mobilize for a full-scale battle in Waziristan, a hard-scrabble, mountainous area where well-armed tribes hold sway and the government's influence is minimal.

Many Taliban and al-Qaida militants fled to the region after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

It remains a base for cross-border attacks on Western and Afghan forces and a training center for militants operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

South Waziristan is also a possible hiding place of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.

Militants have had years to dig in and store arms and ammunition in bolt-holes that include concrete bunkers and tunnel networks, said Asad Munir, a retired brigadier and former intelligence chief for the tribal region.

Battle-hardened fighters from Afghanistan, Swat and elsewhere will rally to join the fight, he predicted.

"This is going to be their final battlefield because the prominent leaders of al-Qaida, the Afghan Taliban, the local Taliban and our own terrorist jihadi organizations, they are all here," Munir said.

"They will defend this place, which has acted as a sanctuary for them."

U.S. missiles fired from unmanned drones have repeatedly struck South Waziristan, most recently on Sunday, and militants would become far more vulnerable to airborne attacks if they are forced out of their strongholds by Pakistan's offensive.

The military has launched repeated operations in the past, only to later back off as the government has pursued failed peace deals instead.

Abbas said Tuesday there were unconfirmed reports that al-Qaida-linked Uzbek militant leader Tahir Yuldash was injured in a Pakistani air force strike Sunday in South Waziristan.

He gave no further details.

Yuldash leads the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and has survived numerous Pakistan military operations to trap him in the tribal regions.
___

Associated Press writers Ishtiaq Masud in Dera Ismail Khan, and Munir Ahmad and Zarar Khan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

"Killing of US soldier casts light on Mosul police - Killing of US soldier casts spotlight on police in Mosul, Iraq's most violent city"

By CHELSEA J. CARTER, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:05 p.m., Wednesday, June 17, 2009

MOSUL, Iraq -- A police investigation of two of their own in the killing of an American soldier and his interpreter is seen as a test of Mosul's police force -- the weakest link among Iraqi security forces about to take the lead in protecting the country's most violent city.

This city of 1.6 million people has long distrusted its police -- particularly after thousands of officers fled their posts in November 2004, leaving the Americans and Kurdish fighters to fight Sunni insurgents who rose up here after being driven out of Fallujah.

The two policemen -- an officer and a sergeant -- were arrested last week by U.S. and Iraqi forces and handed over to Iraqi custody, according to Col. Gary Volesky, commander of U.S. troops in the province that includes Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city.

They allegedly fired on a U.S. patrol Feb. 24, killing Lt. William Emmert of Lincoln, Tenn., and his interpreter and wounding five others.

The two policemen are believed to have fled Mosul after the attack, returning only a few weeks ago.

Under the terms of a security agreement that took effect at the beginning of the year, it is up to Iraqi authorities to prosecute the policemen.

The Americans want the Mosul police to conduct a thorough and professional investigation of the shooting, a disturbing inside job that reinforced fears of insurgents and sympathizers possibly infiltrating Iraq's security forces.

During a recent meeting, a Mosul police commander told Volesky the two suspects had not appeared before a judge -- the first step toward prosecution -- because of doubts not only that they were the gunmen, but that they were policemen at all.

Volesky wasn't buying it, saying the men's relatives had identified them.

"Everybody will be looking at your ability to investigate this completely," Volesky said.

"Let us know what you need from us to help you."

Turning to another American officer, Volesky said: "We've got to continue to coach them all the way through."

Questions about the professionalism of Mosul's police force are becoming more urgent because of the June 30 deadline for American combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities, moving to bases on the edge of town in case the Iraqis call for help.

Under the security pact with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops will leave the country by the end of 2011 -- including the roughly 50,000 who will be left behind after the combat troops withdraw next year.

Although the U.S. military made enormous efforts to train and equip Iraq's army and paramilitary national police, it did not give the same attention to local police.

"There hasn't been the luxury of time to focus on training the Iraqi police," Maj. John Cogbill, the executive officer of the Fort Hood, Texas-based 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry.

Iraqi authorities are sending more army soldiers and national police to Mosul to help fill the void when the Americans pull back.

But in the long term, U.S. and Iraqi officials believe local police must bear the primary responsibility for maintaining security.

That won't be easy.

Volesky said the city is short 5,300 officers of the 17,000 policemen it needs.

"They are the least trained of the Iraqi security forces in Mosul," Volesky said.

It was a point punctuated hours later when a U.S. convoy rolled through a police checkpoint, where policemen could be seen sitting in the shade rather than manning their sun-soaked posts.

In another location, two police officers were text messaging rather than standing guard.

The Iraqi army has little respect for the police.

During a tour of a refurbished market about to reopen, Volesky urged an army officer to use the police to protect shoppers.

"Maybe the police could guard the market," while the army provides security on the street, Volesky said.

The officer shook his head.

"No, no good," said the officer, who refused to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Privately, some Iraqi and U.S. officials believe it will take years before the police can operate effectively.

"Without the Americans, this is not good," said one police officer, who refused to be identified because he was speaking against his commander's policy.

"We do not have proper training, proper equipment."

"We do not have people."

Another problem: Insurgents have frequently targeted Mosul police with shootings, bombings and grenade attacks.

About 225 miles up the Tigris River from Baghdad, Mosul is one of the last bases for Sunni insurgents.

In one heavily fortified police station, policemen wore masks to conceal their identities.

In a nearby machine shop, Mizher Fatthy perspired over a generator in the stifling heat.

Fatthy told Volesky he wanted to join the Iraqi army but that as a former officer in Saddam Hussein's army he was rejected.

Volesky told him Mosul's provincial government was looking for former military officers to beef up the police.

Fatthy shook his head no.

"The Iraqi army is much better than the Iraqi police," he said.

But he fears for his family's safety since policemen are high-priority targets.

"It is not safe for my family."

"They might come and kill them, if I work as police," he said.

"U.S. drones hit Waziristan targets: Pakistan officials"

By Augustine Anthony

18 JUNE 2009

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Suspected U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles at militant targets in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border on Thursday, killing at least five people, intelligence officials said.

The United States, alarmed by worsening security in Afghanistan, has been using pilotless drone aircraft to attack Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in northwestern Pakistani enclaves, from where the militants mount attacks into Afghanistan.

At the same time, nuclear-armed Pakistan is struggling to push back a growing Taliban insurgency of its own.

Its security forces have been fighting the Islamist militants in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, for more than a month.

At least two of the pilotless aircraft used in Thursday's strikes hit two separate areas in the Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan, the intelligence officials said.

The Pakistan military has been softening up targets in the area and is expected to expand its Swat offensive against the Taliban into South Waziristan soon.

"Three missiles struck a training camp run by a local militant commander, Malang Wazir," said an intelligence official, who asked not to be identified, referring to an attack in a village west of the region's main town of Wana.

Another security official, citing witnesses, said five people had been killed in the same strike.

The second attack was in a separate village but neither of the officials had any details about casualties there.

U.S. ally Pakistan objects to the U.S. missile strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy because they inflame public anger and bolster support for the militants.

Washington says the missile strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to publicly criticize the attacks.

Pakistan denies any such agreement.

(Editing by Paul Tait)

"Ground forces move in for Pakistan offensive - Pakistan ground forces take up positions in new offensive against Taliban"

By ROHAN SULLIVAN and ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:45 p.m., Friday, June 19, 2009

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistani ground troops moved into Taliban-controlled areas Friday and engaged in the first gunbattle of a new offensive in the volatile northwest, as an aerial and artillery bombardment pounded other targets.

Officials said Friday's action did not represent the start of a full-scale operation in the tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, but that most troops were now in place for when the orders came.

The coming operation in South Waziristan, along with one winding down in the Swat Valley further north, could be a turning point in Pakistan's yearslong and sometimes halfhearted fight against militancy.

It could also help the war effort in Afghanistan, because the tribal belt is believed to house key bases of al-Qaida and Taliban militants accused of launching attacks on Western and government forces in Afghanistan.

Washington strongly supports the operations, which are seen as a test of nuclear-armed Pakistan's resolve against an insurgency that has expanded in the past two years.

The Swat offensive has been generally welcomed in Pakistan, but public opinion could quickly turn if the government fails to effectively help more than 2 million people displaced from their homes by the fighting, or if civilian casualties mount.

South Waziristan government official Nematullah Khan said Friday ground troops had started taking up positions around strongholds of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who is blamed for a series of suicide attacks in Pakistan that have killed more than 100 people since late May.

"Troops have entered Mehsud's areas" for the first time, Khan told The Associated Press.

Nearby, fighter bombers and artillery pounded suspected militant targets, flattening at least three suspected training facilities and killing or wounding several insurgents, two senior intelligence officials said.

The Taliban opened fire on troops elsewhere in the mountainous area, starting a gunbattle that lasted hours, said one of the intelligence officials, without giving any further details.

It was the first ground fighting since the military announced this week that the operation was on, but in its early stages.

The troop deployment in many areas of South Waziristan has been completed, and soldiers were moving toward strategic areas where large numbers of Taliban fighters were believed to be entrenched, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give information to the media.

One of the officials said the military was blocking all roads that the militants could use to flee.

Khan said a full-scale operation was still not under way.

"These are sort of advance" attacks, he said.

"These are attempts to soften targets before hitting them hard."

"But you can say something has begun."

The timing and strategy of the offensive are not clear.

Senior commanders have indicated they want to avoid adding to the refugee crisis by launching a fight that could send more people fleeing.

Mahmood Shah, a retired brigadier and former chief of security of the tribal regions, said one army division of up to 20,000 troops was based in South Waziristan and that many more were needed before the operation could be launched.

He declined to comment on how many, saying that was up to the army.

The current action "appears to me to be attempts to confuse Baitullah, to disturb him psychologically," Shah said.

Mehsud is believed to have some 5,000 or more fighters who are entrenched in steep mountainous terrain fortified with bunkers and tunnel networks.

Thousands more could be expected to join the fight if tribal elders think the military offensive might also challenge their power in the semiautonomous zone, Shah said.

Ikram Sehgal, a defense analyst, said the bombing and shelling currently under way is a common strategy to prepare for a ground offensive, and warned "there will be close-quarter battles in the days to come."

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar was cited by Dawn newspaper on Friday as saying refugees could start returning to the Swat Valley on Saturday.

But the military did not announce the lifting of any curfews imposed to keep people away from the fighting, and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani contradicted Mukhtar by saying the government wants people to be able to go home as soon as possible but that "no deadline can be given."

The military says the Swat operation is winding down, and refugees have been returning in dribs and drabs to some southern towns even as sporadic fighting continues further north.

Elsewhere in the northwest, militants ambushed an army patrol in the Bajur agency near the Afghan border, killing an army officer and a soldier and wounding three other troops, said local government official Jamil Khan.

The military retaliated with artillery fire at militant hide-outs, killing 11 insurgents, he said.

Khan said militants were suspected in the bombing Friday of three schools in Bajur, where the military declared victory over the extremists in February.

No casualties were reported.

------

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Habib Khan in Khar contributed to this report.

"2 US troops killed in southern Afghanistan"

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 1:55 p.m., Friday, June 19, 2009

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan killed two U.S. troops Friday, the U.S. military said.

The explosion occurred in Kandahar province, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban.

No other information, including the victims' names or which branch of the military they served in, was released.

U.S. military officials have said they expect a 50 percent rise in the number of roadside or suicide bomb attacks this year.

At least 76 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan so far in 2009, a record pace.

Elsewhere in the Afghan south, international and Afghan forces killed 16 Taliban militants in a gunbattle, police said Friday.

One police officer also died in the fighting, they said.

NATO forces confirmed there was a clash in Uruzgan province on Thursday, but spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Hall said they only had reports of five dead, all of them militants.

Uruzgan Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Nabi said the NATO and Afghan forces also arrested one armed insurgent in the battle waged through most of Thursday, and captured a handful of guns and four motorbikes.

Asked about the lower death toll given by NATO, Nabi said he had confirmed reports from the ground of the 17 dead.

Meanwhile, a university student in the capital of neighboring Kandahar province was found dead with his throat cut Friday morning in a side room of a mosque where he had gone to study.

Sadullah Khan, a police official in Kandahar City, said they were investigating the death of the third-year medical student, but did not yet have any information on who might have been responsible for the killing.

neglect by a previous president does that.
Its like the budget and Bush never putting war funding in it so it didn't show as deficit spending. Obama first week put it back in to be visible but it was owned by bush the irresponsible divider oops I meant decider.

Just yesterday, I heard that the Senate had approved EMERGENCY WAR FUNDING for Afghanistnam and IRAQINAM ....

EMERGENCY WAR FUNDING IS NOT IN THE BUDGET ....

Obama plays the same budget games that George W. Bush played ...

And when George W. Bush was playing his games, Obama was SITTING SILENT in the U.S. Senate allowing it to happen ....

And so ...

AND GETTING BACK TO THE ETHNIC CLEANSING THAT IS TAKING PLACE IN AMERICA'S PUPPET NATION OF PAKISTAN, WE HAVE ....

"Officials: 50 militants dead in Pakistan fighting"

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

20 JUNE 2009

CHUPRIAL, Pakistan – Pakistani troops backed by jet fighters and artillery have killed about 50 militants in a volatile northwestern tribal region near Afghanistan where the country's top Taliban leader is believed to be entrenched with thousands of his fighters, officials said Saturday.

They were the first known militant casualties in South Waziristan — where Pakistan Taliban head Baitullah Mehsud and al-Qaida figures are believed to be hiding — since the military started pounding the area with artillery about a week ago.

Mehsud is blamed for a series of suicide attacks that have killed more than 100 people since late May.

Although the army has not announced a formal start of full-scale operations in South Waziristan — an offensive that Washington has been pressing Pakistan to undertake — officials said troops are already occupying strategic positions in the region.

The operation, seen as a test of nuclear-armed Pakistan's resolve against an insurgency that has expanded in the past two years, could be a turning point in its sometimes halfhearted fight against militancy.

It also could help the war effort in Afghanistan, because the tribal belt has long harbored militants who launch cross-border attacks.

Jet fighters flattened two abandoned militant-linked seminaries and a training facility Friday in a clear sign that the operation was ramping up.

Two intelligence and army officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, said heavy fighting was under way in the villages of Barwand and Madijan, with about 50 militants killed.

A military statement said 37 extremists were killed when they tried to block the main South Waziristan road near the town of Sarwaki.

There was no way to reconcile the differing death tolls due to restrictions on media access to the region.

Meanwhile, artillery fire was pounding militant positions in the Biha valley, in the upper Swat Valley, following an intense operation there Friday night against one of few remaining Taliban strongholds in the region.

"This area is the center of gravity for the terrorists," said Maj. Gen. Sajjad Ghani, who is in control of efforts to clear Taliban from a 3,860-square-mile (10,000-square-kilometer) area in the northern Swat valley.

"As of now, there are only pockets of resistance left."

"The terrorists are on the run."

"Command and control is disarray."

"They are unable to organize an integrated response," he said.

During a military-sponsored trip for journalists to Chuprial, Ghani said 95 percent of the region under his control has been cleared and that most of the resistance the military is facing is in Biha, a short valley that backs into snow-covered mountains that are limiting the Taliban's efforts to flee.

He said about 400 militants have been killed in the area during the six weeks of fighting, but conceded many top commanders have managed to escape, some possibly headed to havens in Afghanistan or the Waziristan tribal areas.

Up to 3,000 militants may be left in the area, but only 500 of them are "hard-core" fighters and the rest are recruits who would return to civilian life once military authority is re-established, Ghani said.

The information from the military could not be independently confirmed because access to large parts of the Swat region is restricted.

Overall, the army says it has killed nearly 1,500 militants since April in Swat.

Ghani said a high-intensity operation will continue for about a week or so, then another few weeks will be needed to go after stragglers.

Reporters were taken to a militant training camp where Ghani said about 50 militants were killed, including Arabs, Afghans and Uzbeks.

The complex included tunnels and an ammunition dump.

Troops showed off seized weapons, including improvised bombs, a heavy machine gun and ammunition boxes for rocket-propelled grenades.

Helicopters, including Cobra gunships, flew overhead, and there was no sign of civilians in the scenic area of steep mountainsides and terraced fields, dotted with small villages of single-story concrete houses.

The army clearly has the high ground in most places, dug in with heavy machine guns in sandbagged bunkers.

Officials are planning to let some of the more than 2 million people displaced by fighting in Swat to start returning home further south Thursday.

They are being sent first to Mingora, Swat's main city.

Electricity and civic facilities must be restored before they are allowed to go home in "phases," said Fazal Karim Khattak, a senior government official.

Refugees were happy to hear they will soon go home but worry about what they will find.

"Of course I am happy, but I don't know whether our home is safe or it has been destroyed," said Khadija Bibi, 45, a mother of four who left her home in the Kanjua near Mingora in May.

Khaisata Khan, 32, who owned a shop in the heart of the city of Swat, said he didn't know what had happened to his shop as the military had targeted Taliban in the area where it was located.

"If peace returns to Swat, I will forget the damage to my property and the pain we have to face in the camps," he said as he sat in a camp on the outskirts of the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

The Swat offensive has been generally welcomed in Pakistan, but public opinion could quickly turn if the government fails to effectively help the refugees or civilian casualties mount.

The government has said the army will need to stay in Swat for a year to ensure security.
___

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmad in Islamabad contributed to this report.

And I would say that we here in the USA are footing the bill for this ETHNIC CLEANSING in Pakistan ....

Since they have no money of their own to conduct such extended ETHNIC CLEANSING operations ...

And so ...

Of course, where would the defense industry in America be without these on-going ETHNIC CLEANSING operations ....

And so ...

THE U.S. CAN'T BE FIRST WITH THE TRUTH WHEN IT CAN'T EVER SEEM TO TELL THE TRUTH ...

SO IT WILL ALWAYS BE FIRST WITH ALL THE LIES ....

And so ...

"US accepts blame for deaths of 26 Afghan civilians - Military says US warplane didn't follow strict rules, probably killed 26 Afghan civilians"

By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:46 a.m., Saturday, June 20, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The United States accidentally killed an estimated 26 Afghan civilians last month when a warplane did not strictly adhere to rules for bombing, the U.S. military concluded in a report that recommends even tighter controls to limit deaths that risk turning Afghans against the U.S war effort.

"The inability to discern the presence of civilians and assess the potential collateral damage of those strikes is inconsistent with the U.S. government's objective of providing security and safety for the Afghan people," the report prepared by U.S. Central Command said.

Three U.S. airstrikes conducted after dark near the close of the chaotic fight in the western Farah province probably accounted for the civilian deaths, according to the report released Friday.

It contained only mild criticism of the B-1 bomber crew involved, however, and the nation's top military official has already said there is no reason to punish any U.S. personnel.

Local Afghan officials have said as many as 140 people were killed, and the U.S. report did not rule out that its estimate is low.

An exact accounting will be impossible, the report said.

It concluded that at least 78 Taliban fighters were also killed, along with five Afghan national police officers.

Two U.S. personnel and seven Afghan security officers were wounded.

The deaths last month raised the stakes in a growing battle for the good will of Afghan civilians, whose allegiance Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said is crucial if the United States is going to win the faltering war in Afghanistan.

The report contains no surprises -- U.S. officials had already given rough estimates of the number of deaths -- but provides a vivid narrative of a firefight that stretched from dawn to night.

It recommends refining procedures for operations with the potential to kill civilians and ensuring that training matches the rules.

Other recommendations include improving the military's ability to get its side of the story in front of Afghans faster, something commanders say is frustratingly difficult.

The U.S. should be "first with the truth," the report said.

The report promised a follow-up in four months on how well new tactical rules are working.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told a Pentagon news conference Thursday that he has seen nothing in the investigation that would call for disciplinary action against the U.S. forces involved.

Mullen added that the complex, seven- to eight-hour fight, revealed gaps in the chain of command and some training shortcomings.

Mullen said he is satisfied that U.S. forces involved in the battle were sufficiently sure of their targets and believed that civilians would not be injured when they fired.

Gates has said the accidental killing of civilians in Afghanistan has become one of the military's greatest strategic problems in a war his commanders have called a stalemate at best.

Gates has also said the thousands of new U.S. troops deploying in Afghanistan can lessen the reliance on airstrikes, which are responsible for most of the civilian deaths at U.S. hands.

He has directed his new general running the war in Afghanistan to find new ways to reduce the number of deaths.

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On the Net:

Copy of report: http://tinyurl.com/kl7d67