Killing of French troops ‘individual action’: Karzai

KABUL: The killing of four French troops by an Afghan army soldier was “an isolated and individual action” and did not represent the anger of the Afghan people, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Karzai was speaking after meeting French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet who flew to Kabul in the wake of the shooting at a French base on Friday.

The president “expressed his sadness” over the incident, a statement from the presidential palace said.

“The attack against French forces by an Afghan army soldier does not represent the anger of Afghan people but it is just an isolated and individual action,” he said.

It was a matter of concern that for the second time “an Afghan army soldier turned his weapon on French soldiers” and the ministry of defence had been assigned to investigate the issue, the statement said.

The French defence minister said Saturday that he had been told that the Afghan soldier who killed the troops was a Taliban infiltrator, but Karzai did not mention this allegation.

The Taliban say they are investigating to see whether the shooter had links with the insurgents, suggesting that some attacks by Afghan soldiers are prompted purely by patriotism and anger towards the “invading enemy”.

Longuet had thanked Karzai for his condolences “and assured his country’s continued assistance to Afghanistan”, the statement said.

The defence minister had said “France will sign long term strategic treaty with the government of Afghanistan… and will continue its assistance to Afghanistan beyond 2014″, according to the statement.

When news of the shooting broke on Friday an angry French President Nicholas Sarkozy warned that France could pull its troops out of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan before the planned withdrawal in 2014.

Earlier Sunday, Longuet and General John Allen, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, presided over a solemn repatriation ceremony for the bodies of the four French troops at a snowy Kabul airport.

“The enemy will not hesitate to resort to the worst acts of treachery. Your mission was symbolic: to live with Afghan soldiers, to teach them and not to protect yourselves,” said NATO Lieutenant General Olivier de Bavinchove.

“You died for a just cause: for righteousness and freedom,” he said at the the ceremony attended by some 700 soldiers and Catholic and Protestant clerics.

The four coffins, accompanied by photographs of the fallen soldiers, were draped in the French flag before being carried aloft into the snow-covered jet French presidential jet.

Longuet held talks with  Karzai, Allen and the Afghan interior and defence ministers on how better to protect French troops training Afghan soldiers as part of NATO’s mission.

Six French soldiers have been shot dead in just three weeks by Afghans they were training.

Twelve of the 15 soldiers wounded in Friday’s attack have already been evacuated to France. Two others, too badly wounded to travel, are being treated in the American military hospital at Bagram base in Afghanistan.

The last soldier is being treated at a French hospital in Afghanistan. AGENCIES

Nine NATO troops killed in chopper crash

At least nine NATO service members were killed in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
The security mission said two others NATO service members, an Afghan National Army soldier and a US civilian where injured and transported to an ISAF medical facility for treatment. The alliance said there were no reports of enemy fire in the area and added that the cause of the crash is under investigation. According to figures from iCasualties.org, at least 529 soldiers have died this year in Afghanistan, making 2010 the deadliest year since the start of the US-led invasion in 2001.

US soldier killed in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD: The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed by a roadside blast in Diyala province north of Iraq.

In a statement, the military said the death of the soldier from U.S. Division-North is under investigation.

The death raises to at least 4,394 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

1 Soldier And 30 MiliTants Killed In Pakistan

TrendPK.com 1 Soldier And 30 MiliTants Killed In Pakistan:KHAR (AP) — Officials say Pakistani security forces have killed at least 30 militants after coming under attack in a troubled tribal region in the northwest.
Two government and security officials said Thursday one of their soldiers also died and four were wounded in the [...]

Taliban Video Shows Captive US Soldier

KABUL: Taliban Video Shows Captive US Soldier, The Taliban released a new video on Friday purportedly showing US soldier Bowe Robert Bergdahl who was captured in Afghanistan about six months ago.

The video showed a brief clip of Bergdahl, 23, in front of a carpet wearing in combat fatigues, a helmet and sunglasses.

“I’m afraid to tell you that this war has slipped from our fingers and it’s just going to be our next Vietnam unless the American people stand up and stop all this nonsense,” he said.

Bergdahl, a private who disappeared on June 30, is the first US soldier to be captured in Afghanistan since the US-led war in 2001.

In the video, Bergdahl, a private first class, gives identifying details about himself such as his rank, date and place of birth and other family information, as well as deployment details.

It was not clear when the video was made.

There was no immediate comment from the US military or NATO forces in Afghanistan. In July, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced his capture as “outrageous” and said the United States was doing everything it could to locate and free him.

The Taliban issued another video of Bergdahl in July, showing a visibly shaken shaven-headed soldier pleading for US troops to leave the war-torn nation.

Hundreds of US soldiers and troops from other nations have been killed in Afghanistan battling the widening Taliban-led insurgency.

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Taliban Video Shows Captive US Soldier was first posted on December 25, 2009 at 7:59 pm.

Digger Injured By Bomb In Afghanistan

Digger Injured By Bomb In Afghanistan: AN Australian soldier has been injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Digger Injured By Bomb In Afghanistan:AN Australian soldier has been injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

Defence says the man’s wounds are “not life threatening”.

The wounding happened on Tuesday and comes just days after Defence Minister John Faulkner visited Washington for talks with his US counterparts about the war, which has so far claimed 11 Australian lives.

Defence says the soldier was with the second mentoring and reconstruction task force when he was wounded north of Tarin Kowt in the restive southern province of Oruzgan.

US shooting suspect off ventilator

US shooting suspect off ventilator: US Army officials say the man who killed 13 people during a shooting spree at Fort Hood has been taken off a ventilator but still remains in intensive care. Hasan was shot during an exchange of gunfire during Thursday’s attack On Friday he was moved to Brooke Medical Centre in San Antonio, about 150 miles south-west of Fort Hood, Texas. Colonel John Rossi said he was not sure if Major Nidal Malik Hasan is able to communicate

US shooting suspect off ventilator:US Army officials say the man who killed 13 people during a shooting spree at Fort Hood has been taken off a ventilator but still remains in intensive care.

Hasan was shot during an exchange of gunfire during Thursday’s attack On Friday he was moved to Brooke Medical Centre in San Antonio, about 150 miles south-west of Fort Hood, Texas.

Colonel John Rossi said he was not sure if Major Nidal Malik Hasan is able to communicate.

One of two police officers who confronted Hasan has been speaking about the incident which he says lasted less than a minute. Sergeant Mark Todd joined Sergeant Kimberly Munley in the firefight. Sgt Todd was not wounded, but the exchange left his colleague injured.

Sgt Todd said that seconds after arriving at the scene, he saw a calm-looking Hasan, his gun drawn and his fingers pointing at people outside the Soldier Readiness Processing Centre. He then saw Hasan shooting at soldiers as they attempted to flee.

“He was firing at people as they were trying to run and hide,” said the retired soldier who now works as a civilian police officer at the military base.

“I told him stop and drop your weapons, I identified myself as police and he turned and fired a couple of rounds at me. I didn’t hear him say a word… he just turned and fired.”

Sgt Munley has also won wide praise after the incident, and it’s been revealed she “lost a lot of blood” from a gunshot wound to her left leg that had hit an artery.

Military authorities are continuing to refer to Hasan as a suspect in the shootings, and have not yet said if they plan to charge him in a military or civilian court.

His family has described a man incapable of the attack, calling him a devoted doctor and devout Muslim who showed no signs that he might lash out with violence. His brother, Eyad Hasan, said: “I’ve known my brother Nidal to be a peaceful, loving and compassionate person who has shown great interest in the medical field and in helping others.

Contractor Killing, US Soldier Arrested In Iraq

BAGHDAD: A U.S. soldier in Iraq was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of shooting dead a civilian contractor on the U.S. military’s Camp Speicher, its main base in northern Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said.

The shooting took place on Sunday at around 8.30 am (0530 GMT), U.S. military spokesman for north Iraq Derrick Cheng said.

“A U.S. Soldier has been identified and detained in the alleged shooting incident of a civilian contractor here on … Speicher,” he said. “The civilian contractor later died of wounds. We offer our sincere condolences to the family.”

Speicher is on the outskirts of the Iraqi city of Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad. Cheng did not give further details of the shooting, which he said was under investigation.

In May, a U.S. soldier shot dead five fellow soldiers at a military clinic in Baghdad, an incident that triggered some soul searching in the U.S. military about the effects of stress on troops who do serial deployments.

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Contractor Killing, US Soldier Arrested In Iraq was first posted on September 14, 2009 at 11:17 am.
©2009 “News Trends“.

Indian Held Kashmir, India 3 killed

SRINAGAR: Indian force killed at least three Muslims and an Indian army soldier was also killed in two separate gunbattles in revolt-hit Kashmir, police said Sunday.

The overnight gunbattles took place during “cordon and search” operations launched by the army and backed by counter-insurgency police in the districts of Kupwara and Rajouri .

“Arms and pistols were recovered on the dead militants,” a police statement said in summer capital Srinagar.

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Indian Held Kashmir, India 3 killed was first posted on July 5, 2009 at 12:37 pm.