Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed. The strike, which came hours after Gadhafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations in what rebels called a publicity stunt, marked an escalation of international efforts to prevent the Libyan regime from regaining momentum. The attack struck the house of Gadhafi’s youngest son, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside. White House spokesman Shin Inouye declined to comment on the developments in Libya, referring questions to NATO. Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane.
ISLAMABAD — Suspected militants attacked and set fire to at least 20 tankers carrying oil for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Monday, the third such strike inside Pakistan in as many days, police said. The attack not far from the capital Islamabad took place on a supply line that has been stalled because of a temporary border closing imposed by Pakistani authorities to protest a NATO helicopter attack that killed three Pakistan troops last week. The attackers opened fire on trucks that were parked at a poorly guarded terminal before setting them afire, he and other officers said. The trucks were en route or waiting to travel to the Torkham border crossing along the fabled Khyber Pass, which is used to bring fuel, military vehicles, spare parts, clothing and other non-lethal supplies for foreign troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s other main route into landlocked Afghanistan, in Chaman in the southwest, has remained open. While NATO and the United States have alternative supply routes into Afghanistan, the Pakistani ones are the cheapest and most convenient. Most of the coalition’s non-lethal supplies are transported over Pakistani soil after being unloaded at docks in Karachi, a port city in the south. On Friday, a day after the closure of the Khyber Pass route to NATO and US traffic, there were two attacks on oil tankers headed to the country. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for at least one of them, and vowed to launch more.
State Department notice issued Sunday about the potential for terrorists attacks in Europe. The alert expires Jan. 11: The State Department alerts U.S. citizens to the potential for terrorist attacks in Europe. Current information suggests that al-Qaida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks. European governments have taken action to guard against a terrorist attack and some have spoken publicly about the heightened threat conditions. Terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests. U.S. citizens are reminded of the potential for terrorists to attack public transportation systems and other tourist infrastructure. Terrorists have targeted and attacked subway and rail systems, as well as aviation and maritime services. U.S. citizens should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling.
A rare advisory for U.S. travelers to beware of potential terrorist threats in Europe drew American shrugs Sunday from Paris to Rome, but tourism officials worried that it could deter would-be visitors from moving ahead with plans to cross the Atlantic. The travel alert is a step below a formal warning not to visit Europe, but some experts said it could still hurt a fragile European economy already hit hard by the debt crisis. “I think if someone was looking for an excuse not to travel, then this is just the ticket,” said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com. “However, I don’t think most people will alter their plans unless the threat is very specific.” The State Department alert advised the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens living or traveling in Europe to take more precautions about their personal security. Security officials say terrorists may be plotting attacks in Europe with assault weapons on public places, similar to the deadly 2008 shooting spree in Mumbai, India.
A series of bomb attacks have badly hit US troops in eastern and southern Afghanistan in the past 48 hours. The death toll among in the Nato-led coalition has reached 484 this year and is predicted to far surpass 2009’s total of 521. Obama’s Oval Office Speech On Iraq
Gen David Petraeus, senior US and Nato commander in the country, warned last week fighting would “get harder before it gets easier”. In two of the most deadly recent incidents, three Americans died in eastern Afghanistan on one bomb attack on Tuesday. Five died in a single bomb attack in the south on Monday.
Homemade bombs using old shells or homemade explosives and hidden in roads, tracks, walls, streams and buildings have become the Taliban’s favoured weapon. Their use has sparked an arms race with foreign troops evolving tactics, or relying on more heavily armed vehicles and mine detectors to try and avoid them.
Bombers and gunmen killed at least 56 Iraqis in more than two dozen attacks across the country Wednesday, mostly targeting security forces and rekindling memories of the days when insurgents ruled the streets. The attacks made August the deadliest month for Iraqi policemen and soldiers in two years, and came a day after the U.S. declared the number of U.S. troops had fallen to fewer than 50,000. The attacks have shaken confidence in Iraq’s security forces as they prepare to take over from the U.S., which officially ends its combat mission here on Aug. 31. Obama Early Troop Removal
U.S. commanders and the caretaker government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki repeatedly have blamed the attacks on a hodge-podge of insurgent groups, including extremist groups linked to al Qaeda and, separately, to Iran. The insurgents hope to regain the initiative once the Americans are gone. Powerful blasts targeting security forces struck where they are supposed to be the safest, turning police stations into rubble and bringing down concrete walls erected to protect them from insurgents.
A series of high-profile attacks that started in the summer of 2009 and have struck Baghdad and other cities ever since—at times killing more than 100 people in a single day. The targets often have been symbols of the state: government buildings, army installations and police officers, including traffic police. At least 265 security personnel — Iraqi military, police and police recruits, and bodyguards — have been killed from June through August, compared to 180 killed in the previous five months, according to an Associated Press count.
The deadliest attack came in Kut, 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber blew up a car inside a security barrier between a police station and the provincial government’s headquarters. Police and hospital officials said 19 people died, 15 of them policemen. An estimated 90 people were wounded.
In northern Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in a parking lot behind a police station, killing 15 people, including six policemen. Police and hospital officials said another 58 were wounded in the explosion that left a crater three yards (meters) wide and trapped people beneath the rubble of felled houses nearby.
A police officer was also killed in Mosul where gunmen attacked a police checkpoint and one person was killed in the city of Beiji, in Iraq’s northern province of Salahuddin.
In August, nearly 5 Iraqi security personnel on average have been killed every day so far.
Around 6:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time, a mounted police officer reported a black Nissan Pathfinder had smoke coming out of it. The vehicle contained propane tanks, powder, gasoline and a clock attached to wires. The bomb did not explode and no one was injured. The police used a robot to check the car. I guess the dirver of this vehicle was “misguided” Obama?
The blasts left mountains of rubble, burying men, women and children. The first blasts rocked the city shortly before 9 a.m. in the adjoining Shiite districts of Shula and Shukuk. Within the next two hours, a building that was home to a restaurant and children’s arcade was dynamited in the Allawi neighborhood, a car bomb exploded, and two more buildings were blown up elsewhere in western Baghdad. More than 180 people were injured. The attacks followed the Friday massacre of 25 Sunni Muslim men south of Baghdad and suicide car-bomb attacks against three foreign missions in the capital that killed 41 people Sunday. Remember, June os 2009 Obama removed U.S. troops from Iraq.
Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers killing at least 37 people. The first blast just before 8 a.m. (12.00 a.m. ET) tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at the Lubyanka metro station. The explosion killed at least 23 people. Another blast about 40 minutes later wrecked the second carriage of a train waiting at the Park Kultury metro station, killing 14 more people.
A woman who veiled her explosives in a black robe struck a column of Shi’ite pilgrims on the outskirts of Baghdad. The female suicide bomber killed 54 people, including 18 women and 12 children, were killed and 117 were wounded 54, after she detonated an explosive belt. The pilgrimage was banned by Saddam Hussein’s government, it resumed with the Shi’ite majority after the US invasion in 2003. It has been attacked on a regular basis. The attack was staged along a major roadway in an industrial district on the northern edge of Baghdad. Two more attacks, one with a grenade, another with a roadside bomb, later struck more pilgrims in southern Baghdad, injuring 16.
A suicide car bomber killed at least 18 people and injured 80 at a government forensics centre in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Monday, bomb attacks near well known hotels in the city killed 36 people.
The attacker apparently tried to drive through a police checkpoint and blast walls protecting the centre in the Kerrada district. The building was badly damaged. This is the latest in a series of attacks on official buildings, including those to do with crime and punishment.
Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed. The strike, which came hours after Gadhafi called for a cease-fire and negotiations in what rebels called a publicity stunt, marked an escalation of international efforts to prevent the Libyan regime from regaining momentum. The attack struck the house of Gadhafi’s youngest son, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside. White House spokesman Shin Inouye declined to comment on the developments in Libya, referring questions to NATO. Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane.
