KABUL: An assault by Taliban insurgents on the heart of Kabul's diplomatic and military enclave has ended after 20 hours, when security forces killed the last of six attackers, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said on Wednesday. "The operation just ended and 6 terrorists were killed by police. Details on casualties will be announced later," spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said on Twitter. The insurgents had holed up in...
10:40 AM, Sep 14, 2011
Srinagar/Islamabad: An Indian JCO and three Pakistani soldiers were killed in first major violation of ceasefire in Kashmir valley this year, when troops from the two sides traded heavy gunfire, officials said. The violation took place in the key Keran sector in north Kashmir, which is the major ingress route of the militants from across the border and comes on the heels of another big infiltration bid from the adjacent...
01:25 PM, Sep 01, 2011
Washington: The media coverage of an event to mark the return of the bodies of 30 elite US troops killed in Afghanistan after their chopper was shot down by Taliban has been denied by the Pentagon, saying that there were "no identifiable remains" of these soldiers. Given the nature of the attack, there were "no identifiable remains" of the 30 troops, including 22 Navy SEALs, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col David...
01:36 PM, Aug 09, 2011
Washington: President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to forge ahead with his Afghan war strategy and the Pentagon sought to dispel fears of a Taliban resurgence after militants shot down a helicopter killing 30 US troops, mainly elite Navy SEALs. Saturday's crash was the deadliest incident for US forces since the war in Afghanistan began nearly a decade ago and followed a series of high-profile assassinations and attacks by the...
02:51 AM, Aug 09, 2011
Kabul: A NATO helicopter crashed during a battle with the Taliban in Afghanistan, killing 31 US soldiers and 7 Afghans, the Afghan president said on Saturday, a devastating toll and easily the worst single incident for foreign troops in 10 years of war. A brief statement from the presidential palace said the troop-carrying Chinook helicopter had crashed in Syedabad in central Maidan Wardak province, just to the west of the...
08:24 PM, Aug 06, 2011
Bagram Air Field: The first troops to leave Afghanistan as part of the US drawdown handed over their slice of battlefield on Wednesday to a unit less than half their size and started packing for home. When the 650 members of the Iowa National Guard's 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment arrived in Afghanistan in November 2010, bases didn't have enough housing, translators were in short supply and chow halls were...
01:31 AM, Jul 14, 2011
Washington: We're getting out. No more presidential talk of decisions based on conditions on the ground. No benchmarks to measure. No maybes at all. Determined to pull the United States out of the war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama deliberately left out any wiggle room in declaring that a methodical withdrawal has begun. His speech to the nation on Wednesday, a turning point in a fight most Americans don't want,...
09:27 AM, Jun 26, 2011
New Delhi: Ten years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden's death was a major victory for the US, and was one of the main factors driving the draw-down of US troops in Afghanistan, which President Obama announced this week. Ten thousand American soldiers in Afghanistan will go home by this year end and another twenty thousand in 2012. But Indian experts aren't too worried. They insist that it's part of a...
02:00 PM, Jun 25, 2011
Washington: The nation's top military officer and its top diplomat made clear on Thursday that President Barack Obama rejected the advice of his generals in choosing a quicker path to winding down the war in Afghanistan. The Obama troop withdrawal plan, widely interpreted as marking the beginning of the end of the US combat role in Afghanistan, drew criticism from both sides of the political aisle on Capitol Hill. Some...
07:26 AM, Jun 24, 2011
Washington: President Barack Obama is expected to withdraw roughly 10,000 US troops from Afghanistan this year, with about 5,000 forces leaving this summer and an additional 5,000 Americans coming home by the end of the year, a senior US defense official said on Tuesday. Obama could also announce a timetable for recalling the 20,000 other troops he ordered to Afghanistan as part of his December 2009 decision to send reinforcements...
01:19 AM, Jun 22, 2011
Baghdad: Suicide bombers detonated two explosives-laden vehicles early on Tuesday near a government compound south of Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens, Iraqi officials said. The attacks come as Iraq's top political factions started to discuss in earnest whether to ask some of the U.S. troops to stay beyond the Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline because of the security situation. While violence is well below what it was...
12:58 PM, Jun 21, 2011
Washington: A top US Senator has asked the Obama administration to end its counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan and instead focus on counter-terrorism efforts. Speaking just days before the Obama administration's planned announcement to reveal how many US troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in July, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez said the strategy in Afghanistan is not winnable. "Since 9-11, we are painfully aware that the world is a different...
12:25 PM, Jun 21, 2011
Washington: President Barack Obama is close to announcing the critical next phase in America's decade-long war in Afghanistan, outlining both a plan to start bringing US troops home next month and a broader withdrawal blueprint aimed at giving Afghans control of their own security in 2014. But even as Obama nears a decision, there are deep divisions in his administration, with military leaders favoring a gradual reduction in troops but...
03:07 AM, Jun 21, 2011
Islamabad: Suspected militants carried out two attacks on NATO supply vehicles in Balochistan province of southwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing a driver and destroying a container truck and an oil tanker. A driver was killed when suspected militants attacked an oil tanker carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan in the Mian Ghundi suburb of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan. Police said four attackers riding on two motorbikes first killed...
10:05 PM, Jun 19, 2011
Seoul: South Korean troops fired at a commercial aircraft flying near the tense sea border with North Korea, misidentifying it as one of the communist North's jet fighters, but no damage occurred, local news media reported on Saturday. The Yonhap news agency, quoting a military source, said two marine corps soldiers guarding the waters off the South's western city of Incheon, fired their K-2 rifles for about 10 minutes at...
09:42 AM, Jun 18, 2011
Guatire: Thousands of National Guard troops stormed a Venezuelan prison on Friday seeking to disarm inmates days after a bloody riot, setting off gunfights with resisting inmates that left at least two soldiers dead and 18 wounded. Bursts of gunfire erupted inside the El Rodeo I prison while hundreds of inmates' relatives wept desperately outside, some of them shouting, "Help them!" Troops used tear gas and a water cannon to...
07:37 AM, Jun 18, 2011
Golan Heights: Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday at a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to break into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from neighboring Syria, killing as many as 12 people and wounding scores in a burst of violence marking the Arab defeat in the 1967 Mideast war. The casualty figures came from Syrian state television and were confirmed by the head of a hospital treating the casualties. The...
09:06 PM, Jun 05, 2011
Benghazi: British Apache and French attack helicopters struck targets for the first time in NATO's campaign in Libya, hitting Muammar Gaddafi's troops early on Saturday near a key coastal oil town, the alliance said. Hours later, at least eight airstrikes were heard in Tripoli. The action was a significant step-up in NATO's operations and a major boost to Libyan rebels, just a day after rebel fighters forced government troops from...
12:32 AM, Jun 05, 2011
Sanaa: Yemeni forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire on protesters in the southern city of Taiz on Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding 120, hospital sources said. A photographer at the scene said police fired live ammunition, tear gas and used water cannons to disperse demonstrators protesting outside a municipal building to demand the release of a fellow protester who was arrested on Saturday. The...
08:23 AM, May 30, 2011
London: Britain trained Saudi Arabia's forces which were sent into neighbouring Bahrain to help crush a pro-democracy uprising in the tiny gulf kingdom early this year, a media report said on Sunday. Saudi Arabian National Guard, the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain, was given training in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles by British military mission, The Observer newspaper reported citing...
01:32 PM, May 29, 2011
