The US death toll in Afghanistan passed the two thousand mark. This is not a statistic to be celebrated. It is a warning that the war there is far from over. The latest casualty comes from yet another infiltrator attacking US and Afghan Soldiers at a checkpoint. These attacks are designed to hamper relations and rot away at the already tenuous trust between the indigenous forces and the US military. They are planned and deliberate, many times with a target already selected.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Tariq al-Hashami's in absentia sentencing for using Iraqi forces and a private militia to run death squads against Shia'a political opposition, Iraq was again pock marked with attacks targeting Iraqi security forces and Shia'a pilgrims. Three VBIEDs detonated in the city of Taji. They targeted the homes of prominent Shia'a politicians and police checkpoints. Another VBIED detonated in the Iraqi town of Mada'in, targeting a bus loaded with Shia'a pilgrims from Iran. (Of note, other Iranian Shia'a pilgrims have been kidnapped in Syria recently). Another car bomb attacked pilgrims and Iraqi Security Forces in the town of al-Kut. There were also attacks in the former Al Q'aeda stronghold near Mosul as well as the town of Baqubah, where former al-Q'aeda Iraq leader Abu Musa'ab al-Zarqawi was killed by a US airstrike. The violence in Iraq killed a total of thirty-three people.
Meanwhile, in Nairobi, Kenya, children at a church based school were attacked by a grenade. The attack killed one child and wounded three others. This was most likely committed by the al-Q'aeda linked al-Shabab terrorist organization. Al-Shabab is one of the Islamic Terrorist groups that has seized control of southern Somalia. Earlier this week, the Kenyan military conducted a military operation to liberate the Somali town of Kismayo from the group, which maintained a stronghold in the city.
With the attacks over the past week, it almost appears as though terror groups are attempting to meet a monthly quota.
The attacks in Iraq come on the heels of a jailbreak near Tikrit that freed at least ninety criminals including several men described as "hardcore al-Q'aeda operatives". That jailbreak also involved the burning of evidential documentation and theft of source documentation identifying some detainees who were cooperating with intelligence investigations seeking insurgents and terrorists at large.
Taking other terrorist activities in the past few weeks into account, along with the UN's "general debate", it should come as no surprise that these are not random. They are intentional and coordinated. It is as if a globally positioned subversive military group has mobilized into a world wide coordinated attack. Instead of a single, large scale, attention grabbing event, they are smaller-scale and designed towards a specific set of objectives. It almost appears as these are all military shaping operations in preparation for the next terrorist surge.
Original article at Mental Aikido.
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