NATO says two soldiers killed in Afghanistan

KABUL: NATO said Tuesday two foreign soldiers were killed fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan, bringing the toll so far this year to 629, according to an AFP count.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said one soldier was killed in an insurgent attack on Monday in the country’s east, and another in the south by an improvised bomb.

The nationalities of the fatalities were not released and there were no further details.

AFP’s tally is based on a count kept by independent website icasualties.org, which is regularly updated, and also logs deaths of soldiers evacuated out of Afghanistan for treatment of injuries.

NATO and the United States have more than 150,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan to fight the insurgency, led by Taliban militants who have stretched their presence to most parts of the country. AGENCIES

Soldiers Hurt by Blast at Iran Military Base

TEHRAN: An explosion at an Iranian military training base injured several servicemen on Tuesday.

The cause of the blast, at a base in Khoramabad in western Iran, was not given. IRNA said several soldiers were taken to hospital but did not say how many were hurt or how seriously.

Last month a bomb killed 12 people and injured 80 in the city of Mahabad which authorities blamed on “anti-revolutionary” militants backed by Iran’s foreign enemies.

NATO border strike in Kurram, 3 Pak soldiers killed

PARACHINAR: Three Pakistani soldiers were killed in a NATO helicopter attack in a border region with Afghanistan, security and military officials said, apparently the fourth such strike in recent days.

The attack by two NATO helicopters took place early in the morning in Teri Mangal village in Kurram, an ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border.

“The helicopters shelled the area for about 25 minutes. Three of our soldiers manning a border post were killed and three wounded,” a senior security official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

He did not say whether Pakistan responded to the strike. Pakistan on Monday expressed outrage at violation of its airspace by NATO helicopters in Afghanistan over the weekend, saying it would consider “response options” to any future incursions.

Two NATO Apache helicopters killed 30 insurgents on

Nine Iraqi soldiers killed in roadside bomb blast

MOSUL: Nine Iraqi soldiers were killed on Wednesday and six people wounded, including five soldiers, when a roadside bomb destroyed a bus west of the volatile northern city of Mosul, police and army sources said.

The soldiers were off-duty and on their way to spend leisure time at their homes, said a police source in Mosul, considered al Qaeda in Iraq’s last urban stronghold, and an army source in the joint coordination office of Nineveh province.

Insurgents have launched steady attacks on Iraqi police and troops in recent weeks, while the U.S. military formally ended combat operations in August, 7-1/2 years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein. AGENCIES

Madonna’s daughter makes film debut

LOS ANGELES: Queen of Pop Madonna’s teenage daughter Lourdes will make her big screen debut in her mother’s much hyped directorial venture W.E.



The 13-year-old, billed as Lola Leon in the film credits, was spotted on the set shooting in a school uniform, according to reports.



It’s not known yet exactly what part she’s playing and how big her role will be.



Before she changed into her costume, Lourdes had joined her mother on the shoot with brothers Rocco and David to see what progress was being made yesterday.



Madonna was shooting in Mayfair outside hotel Claridges, as well as outside a makeshift Downing Street located in Aldwych.



W.E, Madonna’s second film as a director, tells the story of Edward VIII’s relationship with Wallis Simpson.

Drug shootout with army kills 25 in Mexico

MEXICO CITY: At least 25 suspected drug gang members were killed in an army raid in rural northeastern Mexico on Thursday, the army said in a press release.

Soldiers were sent to the location after an airborne patrol sighted armed men outside a building. Fighting began when the men opened fire on the troops.

Three people who presumably had been kidnapped by the gang were freed following the fighting. Two soldiers were wounded.

Troops seized 23 vehicles, including two painted in army colors, two dozen guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

The clash was originally reported to have taken place in the state of Nuevo Leon, where business hub Monterrey is located, but actually took place across the border in neighboring Tamaulipas.

Tamaulipas state has become one of Mexico’s bloodiest drug flashpoints since the start of the year as rival

Eight human heads found near northern Mexico roadsides

TORREON: Eight human heads were found early Tuesday in four separate places near roadsides outside the northern Mexico city of Durango, the local prosecutor”s office said.

Police found the heads within the space of two and a half hours due to anonymous tip-offs, “but had not identified the victims, nor located the bodies,” said a statement from the Durango state prosecutor”s office.

The victims were males thought to have been aged between 25 and 30, the statement said.

The tip-offs said that two human heads had been dumped on each of three roads out of Durango city.

Workers cleaning a traffic island found the remaining two on a road leading north to the industrial city of Gomez Palacio.

The attorney general on Sunday accused officials at a prison in Gomez Palacio of releasing inmates to carry out drug-related killings. Those included three massacres, which left 35 dead this year in neighboring Torreon, in Coahuila state.

Seven Polish soldiers wounded in Afghanistan

WARSAW: Seven Polish soldiers were wounded in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday when a roadside bomb blew up as their armoured vehicle passed, the Polish defence ministry said.

“In the south of the province of Ghazni, the rebels attacked a Polish patrol with an explosive device planted on the side of the road,” the ministry said in a statement.

The soldiers were evacuated by helicopter to a hospital at a base in Ghazni. Two were in serious but stable condition.

Poland has 2,500 troops in the international force battling the Taliban in Afghanistan and is due to raise their number to 2,600 by the end of the year.

Nineteen Polish soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since Poland first sent troops there in March 2002, including three since June 12.

Turkey issues arrest orders of 102 over ”coup plot”‎

ISTANBUL: A Turkish court issued an arrest warrant Friday for 102 suspects, among them senior army commanders, charged over an alleged plan to stage a coup in 2003, Anatolia news agency reported.

The court also set the first hearing in the high-profile case for December 16 in a prison complex near Istanbul, said judge Davut Bedir as he announced the warrant, according to Anatolia.

Five serving generals and two admirals as well as retired commanders, including the alleged mastermind of the plan, were among the suspects on the warrant, the agency said.

A total of 196 defendants will stand trial over the alleged coup plan — codenamed Operation Sledgehammer — in the toughest judicial action so far against the influential Turkish military.

The plan was allegedly drawn up at the Istanbul base of the First Army in 2003, shortly after the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the offshoot of a banned Islamist movement, came to power amid fears it would undermine Turkey”s secular system.

The warrant included admirals Mehmet Otuzbiroglu and Kadir Sagdic, commanders of the navy”s northern and southern flanks respectively, as well as five serving generals, Anatolia said.

Also on the list were four retired generals and two admirals.

Four US soldiers killed in Afghan bomb attack: NATO

KABUL: Four US soldiers were killed Saturday in a Taliban-style bomb attack, NATO said, as the death toll of foreign soldiers in the Afghan war climbed closer to the 2,000 mark.

NATO”s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the four died following an attack with an improvised explosive device, or IED, the main weapon deployed by the Taliban in their insurgency.

An ISAF spokeswomen confirmed the four were Americans. The incident took place in southern Afghanistan, where the war is at its fiercest, an ISAF statement said.

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