 British troops fighting Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan are on the "brink of exhaustion", The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. Commanders fear that the number of "high tempo" operations being launched against the Taliban is "unsustainable" unless the 3,600-strong task force is reinforced with an extra 1,000-strong infantry battle group.Since May, British troops in Helmand province have fought 25 major battles in which they killed an estimated 700 Taliban.Commanders say the mission has so far been "fantastically successful", but they believe that the relentless number of back-to-back operations being fought in harsh terrain in temperatures of up to 50C is beginning to take its toll....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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Editor - 23:01:00 08-05-06
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 Israel arrests Palestinian parliament leader. Security forces take Dweik from home, say he is leader of terrorist group |
Israeli security forces detained Palestinian parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik, a leader of the governing Hamas movement, in a raid on his West Bank home on Sunday. “We were sitting home peacefully, normally. Then we heard knocking on the door, which surprised and shocked us because the knocking was so loud,” his wife told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah after the night-time arrest. “He went down because the army was there. He opened the door. They saw him in his pajamas and asked him to go with them. He asked for his clothes, and I brought them.” An Israeli army spokesman confirmed Dweik was taken into custody. “He is the head of Hamas’s legislature and since Hamas is a terrorist organization, he is a target for arrest,” he said. Israeli forces detained eight members of the Palestinian cabinet and 23 legislators in June after gunmen from Hamas and two other militant groups infiltrated into Israel from Gaza and kidnapped an Israeli soldier, who is still being held...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14204638/
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Editor - 15:50:00 08-05-06
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| Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims! |
Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites. ...
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Ambassador_claims_shortly_before_invasion_Bush_0804.html
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Editor - 15:39:00 08-05-06
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| Palestinian Speaker 'in custody'. Custody, Detained, Kidnapped, or Captured??? |
Israeli forces have detained the Speaker of the Palestinian parliament at his home in the West Bank, Palestinian officials say. Aziz Dweik, also a key member of Hamas, which controls the government, was held after 20 Israeli vehicles surrounded his home in Ramallah, they say. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5249528.stm
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Editor - 15:32:00 08-05-06
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| US, France agree UN Lebanon text |
The US and France have agreed the wording of a UN resolution to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. It calls for a "full cessation of hostilities", demanding that Hezbollah halt all attacks and Israel stop all offensive military operations. A BBC correspondent at the UN says the wording would allow Israel some freedom if it argues it needs to defend itself. The UN Security Council has held initial consultations on the draft. Israel has so far reacted cautiously. US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said the Security Council meeting on Saturday was "very productive". "We received a lot of encouraging comments on the draft text," he said, adding that member states needed to send it back to their capitals to seek instruction. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5248868.stm
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Editor - 15:15:00 08-05-06
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| NATO Soldier Killed, 3 Hurt in Vehicle Accident in Southern Afghanistan, NATO Says |
One NATO soldier was killed and three were injured when their armored jeep crashed in southern Afghanistan Saturday, a NATO statement said. The crash in Kandahar province was not the result of hostile action, the statement said. The soldiers were accompanying a supply convoy through the province, which has been wracked by violence since NATO took command of southern Afghanistan from the U.S.-led coalition Monday. Militants killed four Canadian soldiers and a suicide car bomber killed 21 civilians there Thursday. NATO did not identify the nationalities of the soldiers in Saturday's accident. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2277026
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Editor - 15:09:00 08-05-06
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