2 killed, including the agent, at the Memphis Hotel - Seattle Post Intelligencer

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) - A police officer and another person died of their wounds after having been shot Sunday evening in a Memphis Hotel, located in the neighbourhood of the entertainment of the city filled with people celebrating the Fourth of July. A suspect was in custody.Director of police Toney said Armstrong officer Timothy Warren, a Department since 2003 patrol officer, died in Center.Warren medical regional among several officers responding to a call to the Doubletree Hotel around 7 a.m. on Sunday. A civilian casualty was also filmed and died in what officials said began as a domestic dispute.Armstrong was Director of the police service of Memphis for only a few months. "" Even if you had been the Director of 20 years, it is a call that you hope you don't ever get ", he said.WMC - TV reported that police had responded earlier in the night to the call for disruption involving the same suspect, but let go. When they were recalled, the officer who shot takes the stairs while other officers takes the elevator.Police cars and officers armed invading the hotel and its surroundings. The hotel is located at a busy intersection adjacent to the historic hotel of Peabody and the Memphis Redbirds minor league Stadium. A game is in progress and fireworks were planned after the match.Joel Miller of Maryland attended a meeting of family at the hotel. He told the Commercial Appeal that it gets in an elevator with the suspect, who was wearing shorts and a plaid shirt.Miller he "seemed to be off," said the newspaper, "as he was out of it."Miller said that man has descended on the third floor, he pulled out a pistol from his pocket. "He looked and pointed his finger and made like that", Miller said, claiming the fire a weapon.

Leader of attack on Kabul Hotel killed by aircraft of the NATO - The Guardian

A military helicopter of the NATO plane on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, after he was attacked by fighters Taliban photography: S Sabawoon/EPA

The NATO planes killed one insurgent linked to a deadly attack hotel in the Afghan capital, this week, the coalition said a raid raises questions about whether if Afghan forces are prepared for the impending transition of security.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Intercontinental, one of two major hotels used by foreigners and representatives of the Afghan Government, a rare nighttime raid which began Tuesday and ended five hours later with 12 killed.

However, the International Security Assistance Force led by NATO (ISAF) said that the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network had also participated in the assault by nine suicide bombers and gunmen.

ISAF has identified the leader of the Haqqani network, killed in an air attack: Jan Ismail, described as a Deputy to the senior Commander Haqqani in Afghanistan, Haji Mali Khan.

He said Thursday he and "several Haqqani fighters" were killed in an air attack in the province of Paktia Gardez district South of Kabul on Wednesday.

"The Haqqani network, in conjunction with Taliban secret agents, was responsible for the attack on Tuesday night at the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, which killed 12 people, including a provincial judge," ISAF said in a statement.

The raid came only a week after the President of United States, Barack Obama, announced the progressive withdrawal of combat troops, with 10 000 to leave at the end of this year and 23 000 more at the end of September 2012.

Announcement of the Obama prior to the beginning of a gradual transition of responsibility to the Afghan forces next month that will end with all foreign combat troops, leaving the Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

This process to begin in seven fields next month, the raid on the hotel raised serious questions about whether the Afghan forces, including the police, were ready to support.

"It shows one of the concerns is that the Afghan security forces is more in quantity, not quality," said Thomas Ruttig, Co-Director of the network based in Kabul to Afghanistan analysts.

The attack ended when a helicopter of the NATO sniper killed the last three attackers fighting from the roof of the hotel. Earlier television images showed the Afghan forces firing heavily in the air.

ISAF training of members of the Afghan national police of 126,000 - strong since 2009.

Afghan police, who will be the front line of security transition in towns and villages across the Afghanistan, have long been considered inept and behind the formation of the dindisie army, which was the subject of the efforts of training since the Taliban was overthrown late 2001.

Violence has increased to record levels in Afghanistan over the past 18 months as NATO troops, especially, American forces struck against a growing insurgency, especially in the heart of the Taliban in the South.

A quarterly report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Security Council on the Afghanistan concluded that the number of incidents of security since March had increased 51% over the same period in 2010, with suicide bombings rises sharply.

Attacks in the heart of the Taliban in Kandahar have been particular concern. "The city of Kandahar and its environs recording the majority of incidents during the reporting period, with a quarter of global attacks" and more than half of all registered killings countrywide, the report said.

But, Ruttig, stated that also developed attack revealed that the other difficulties encountered in Afghanistan before the start of the transition process, which also includes the delivery to Afghans the functioning of civil institutions and projects.

Is policy paralysis prevailing in the country for months.

"The fact that NATO and the Afghan people were able to avoid that it says something - which must be something more than just the security of the transition," Ruttig said the hotel attack.

"Security forces are only part of the transition." It must also be a strengthening of political institutions and, at the moment, the parliamentary crisis has brought political to a standstill, "he told Reuters."

Last week a Court of special election created by a decree by President Hamid Karzai, cancelled the results of a quarter of parliamentary seats since the elections of last year, effectively throwing 62 MPs who had been declared winners.

The move and the Court itself, were tagged unconstitutional and illegal by observers and Afghan officials to the West. Critics have said that the Court has been put in place by Karzai to pursue its own political opposition of the order of the day and silence.

Ten people killed in the attack on Kabul Hotel - voice of America

Afghan security officer directing vehicles near the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, June 28, 2011

At least six suicide bombers and gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul, late Tuesday and early reports indicate that 10 people were killed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack of the Intercontinental Hotel.   Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said the Group was targeting foreign guests, and that the attackers were killed or wounded at least 50 people.  However, the Taliban often exaggerates the number of victims in attacks against Western and Afghan Government targets.

The head of the Kabul police crime unit, Mohammad Zahir, said that several police officers were injured in the fighting, while witnesses reported at least three loud explosions and gunfire inside and outside the hotel.

Ministry of Interior spokesman Sidiq Sidiqqi said the suicide bombers detonated themselves or were killed and two Taliban insurgents have continued to fire from the roof Wednesday at the start.

Police blocked streets leading to the hotel, situated on a hill that overlooks the Afghan capital and said that the entire area in darkness.  Shortly after, the national army Afghan commando unit arrived on the scene.

The attack occurred on the eve of a Conference on the gradual transition of responsibility civilian and military forces to the Afghan people.

In other acts of violence Tuesday, NATO said three of its members in service are dead in attacks by insurgents and separate bomb in the South of the Afghanistan.

Also in the South, the authorities have declared a bomb killed two women and wounded a child in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province.

Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

Window.fbAsyncInit = function() {FB.init ({ID: "173332546055825", status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true, channelUrl: "http://www.voanews.com/templates/facebookCustomChannel.html"});}; (function() {var e = document.createElement ('script'); e.async = true; e.src = document.location.protocol + ' / / connect.facebook.net/en/all.js'; document.getElementById('fb-root') methods (e);})());[All VOA blogs...]

To view this site, you must have Flash Player 9.0.115 or later installed. Click here to get the latest Flash Player.

Money in motion
Philip Alexiou report combating the illegal trade in ivory of observation.

Troops from the NATO 6 killed in attack at Afghanistan (PA) (Yahoo!)

By HEIDI VOGT and MIRWAIS KHAN, Associated Press Heidi Vogt and Mirwais Khan, Associated Press - ago hours 3 mins

Kabul, Afghanistan - a suicide attacker blew a minibus packed with explosives near the doors of a military base in the South of the Afghanistan Sunday, killing six and two Afghan soldiers, NATO troops responsible for said.

Said Afghan officials that the attack took place in Zhari district of Kandahar province where United States contributed troops this summer for a thrust forces to try to prevent the Taliban bastions of the South.

Abdul Hamid, the Afghan national army and head of the province, said that the attacker driving a minibus at the entrance of the base Sunday morning as vehicles were preparing to move a patrol.

"They were leaving the compound and at the same time, the minibus attacked and hit right at the entrance of the base," Hamid said.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, saying: the insurgent group was retaliation all attacks on them in the region in recent months.

Only NATO declared that service members were killed by rebel attack and declined to identify their nationality. Most of the troops from NATO in the South are American. International troops more than 670 killed so far this year, well above the 502 killed throughout 2009.

Attack on Sunday was the second incident in two weeks to kill so many members of the service. November 29, a sound activated Afghan police weapon its American trainers East, killing six of them until he was shot. The Taliban claimed that they had sent him to join the police as a sleeper agent. Prior to this, five American soldiers were killed insurgent attack on 14 November on their unity in the East of the Afghanistan.

Also Sunday, said NATO a joint force of NATO-Afghanistan killed a Taliban leader and captured a member key from another activist in the East.

Taliban leader participated in the smuggling of weapons and attacks in the Eastern province of Wardak, according to a statement. NATO he identified only by his surname, Fedahi.

NATO said two men threatened coalition that entry into compound Saturday evening where they had heard about Fedahi staying troops. They shot and killed two men, one was later identified as Fedahi, said the Declaration. Told civil steps were harmed in the operation.

Of a separate raid in the Eastern province of Khost Saturday night, troops from the NATO and the Afghanistan captured the Haqqani network leader, a Taliban faction based Pakistan linked to al-Qaeda.

Coalition troops boarded the insurgents in an enclosure in the said district of Terayzai, NATO. The prisoner, he said, led attacks bomb and ambushes against Afghan and coalition troops.