Clash Between Militants and Yemen Troops Kills 3

Published November 03, 2010

| Associated Press

SAN'A, Yemen -- A Yemeni security official says militants have attacked a military checkpoint in the country's south. He says the ensuing firefight killed one of the attackers and two soldiers.
The official says the assault took place on Wednesday in the town of Jaar in the southern Abyan province.

The official blamed the attack on Al Qaeda militants. He says clashes are continuing between militants and security forces in the area and that he expects casualties.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.
Yemen's weak central government is struggling with a growing threat from Al Qaeda, which has stepped up attacks in the impoverished and largely lawless country.

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US Missile Strike Kills 5 Militants in Pakistan

Published November 03, 2010

| Associated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A U.S. drone strike hit a vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing five suspected militants, two Pakistani intelligence officials said.

It was the second strike this month targeting Pakistani Taliban and foreign militants seeking sanctuary in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The unmanned aircraft fired missiles at a vehicle in the Qutab Khel area of Miran Shah, the main town in the region. The slain insurgents were from Uzbekistan, the officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, provided no further details and said their agents were still trying to get more details.

North Waziristan is too dangerous for outsiders to visit and independently confirm the attacks. U.S. officials do not acknowledge firing the missiles, much less discuss who they are targeting.

Insurgents based in North Waziristan are blamed for attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

There were at least 20 such U.S. missile strikes in the region in October.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment. Pakistan has publicly denounced the drone attacks and urged Washington to transfer technology to Islamabad so that its military could launch any such attacks.

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Militants Attack U.N. Office in Western Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A United Nations official says no U.N. staff members were harmed in a suicide attack on a United Nations compound in Afghanistan's western Herat province.

One of the attackers drove a car packed with explosives into the gates of the building, allowing at least three other militants wearing explosives vests and carrying guns to enter the compound.

A spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Dan McNorton, says there were no U.N. casualties from Saturday's attack.

It was not immediately clear if any Afghan guards were injured in the attack.

At least three militants -- all wearing explosives vests -- went inside after the explosion, said Nabiq Arleen, a spokesman for the provincial governor of Herat province.

Afghan security forces exchanged gunfire with the attackers, killing at least one of them, said Ministry of Interior spokesman Zemeri Bashary.

NATO troops joined Afghan forces in surrounding the site. Helicopters flew overhead.

In the south, a photographer for The New York Times was seriously injured by a mine Saturday in Kandahar province where international forces are pushing into Taliban strongholds to try to turn the tide of the war.

Joao Silva, 44, received leg injuries when he stepped on the mine while accompanying American soldiers on patrol in the Arghandab district. Silva was evacuated to Kandahar Air Field where he was receiving treatment, the newspaper said in a statement.

No U.S. troops were wounded in the morning explosion.

A group of minesweepers and bomb-sniffing dogs had just moved over the area and were several steps ahead of Silva when the bomb went off. Homemade bombs and mines cause the majority of deaths and injuries among U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Bombs made with small amounts of metal are difficult to detect.

Silva and a New York Times reporter were embedded with a unit of the 101st Airborne Division.

Silva, who has received several awards for his work, has photographed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, southern Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East. He is the author, with Greg Marinovich, of "The Bang-Bang Club," a chronicle of a group of four photographers covering the violence in South Africa in the 1990s. The other two were Kevin Carter and Ken Oosterbroek.

"Joao is the state-of-the-art war photographer, fearless but careful, with an amazing eye," said Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times. "We're all waiting anxiously and praying for his quick recovery."

In August 2009, CBS Radio News correspondent Cami McCormick was seriously injured when the Army vehicle in which she was riding struck a bomb south of Kabul. That same month, two journalists for The Associated Press -- photographer Emilio Morenatti and videographer Andi Jatmiko -- were wounded along with two U.S. soldiers by a bomb -- also in Kandahar province.

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Intelligence officials: 4 suspected US missile strikes in NW Pakistan have killed 11 militants, AS

Published October 13, 2010

| Associated Press

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan –  Intelligence officials: 4 suspected US missile strikes in NW Pakistan have killed 11 militants.

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Intel: US missiles kill 8 militants in NW Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan –  A suspected American missile strike killed eight alleged militants in a northwest Pakistani tribal region Saturday, two intelligence officials said, a sign the U.S. is unwilling to stop using the unpopular tactic despite heightened tensions between the two countries over recent border incursions by NATO.

The Pakistani Taliban, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for an attack on NATO oil tankers in Pakistan's south, saying they were avenging the killing of three Pakistani border guards by NATO helicopters. In apparent retaliation for the killings, Pakistan has cut off a key U.S. and NATO supply line on its soil.

A surge in U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan along with NATO operations along the border suggests Western forces are cracking down on insurgents who easily move between Afghanistan and Pakistan's porous boundary — something Islamabad has been slow to do despite pleas from Washington. Pakistan's willingness to block the supply line amid public outrage, however, shows the leverage it has over the U.S. and NATO.

Four suspected U.S. missiles struck a house Saturday morning in the Datta Khel village of North Waziristan tribal region, the Pakistani officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk on the record to the media. Datta Khel has been the scene of several such attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida fighters and their local supporters who are accused of targeting NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Over the past five weeks, the U.S. has launched at least 22 missile strikes in Pakistani territory, an unprecedented number. Western officials say some of the CIA-controlled, drone-fired strikes have been aimed at disrupting a terror plot against European cities.

U.S. officials rarely discuss the covert program, but have described it in the past as a highly successful tool that has taken out some top militant leaders. Pakistan, while formally opposing the missile strikes, is believed to secretly provide intelligence for them. Polls show deep opposition among Pakistani citizens to the strikes, along with a belief that they kill large numbers of civilians.

Public outrage has also risen over the recent NATO incursions. It hit a peak on Thursday, when two NATO helicopters crossed into Kurram tribal region and killed three Pakistani paramilitary soldiers who fired warning shots at them from a border post.

On Saturday, some 150 trucks were still waiting for Pakistan to reopen the border crossing at Torkham so they could deliver their supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan. But Pakistan has shown no sign it plans to allow the trucks to leave its territory, despite the potential strain a lengthy closure would have on its relationship with the U.S., which provides it with billions in military and other aid.

A second, smaller border crossing in the southwest town of Chaman remains open, but Torkham, in the northwest, is considered much more important.

Its closure has coincided with attacks on NATO supply trucks elsewhere in the country, including the torching of some 30 oil tankers early Friday by suspected militants in southern Pakistan's Sindh province.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azzam Tariq told The Associated Press that his organization was behind the assault in the Shikarpur area, and threatened more attacks — including ones inside the United States.

"We ask the government of Pakistan to cut all the supply routes for NATO, otherwise we will continue targeting NATO's fuel trucks and containers," he told AP via phone. "We condemn the NATO attack on Pakistani forces in Kurram, and this attack proves that Christians and Jews cannot be our friends, and this is what Islam tells us. We will avenge this NATO attack by targeting America. We will carry out attacks inside America."

The Pakistani Taliban is strongest in the northwest, especially in the tribal belt, but it has ties to other militant groups throughout the country. If it played a role in the attack on the NATO oil tankers, it might have relied on foot soldiers from militants with groups based in Sindh.

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