http://www.iacsp.com Get the latest from our site! http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=52 By KAREEM FAHIM On hours of recordings, James Cromitie cursed loudly and made empty boasts, threatened violence, complained of discrimination and revealed his noxious hate. More than anything, though, he talked. And talked some more. “Sometime, I think I’m talking too much,” Mr. Cromitie said to the informer who recorded dozens of their conversations from October 2008 to May 2009 — in a diner, cars, an F.B.I. safe house in New York and a hotel in Philadelphia. After those conversations, Mr. Cromitie and three other men were arrested in May 2009 on charges that they had planted bombs outside two Bronx synagogues, and had plotted to fire missiles at military planes. In several hours of tapes that were played in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday, Mr. Cromitie sounded at times weary or jovial. He complained about the way Jewish people treated him and talked about “jumping up and killing one of them.” Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:07:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=51 By ROD NORDLAND Seven American soldiers were killed in fighting in eastern and southern Afghanistan over the weekend, after several weeks of declining death tolls among NATO forces. In western Afghanistan, in Herat Province, the police found the bullet-riddled bodies of five missing campaign workers for a female candidate in next month’s parliamentary elections, and another candidate for Parliament was killed, Afghan officials said Sunday. The American servicemen were killed in five separate attacks, according to statements from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF. On Sunday, an American soldier was killed by a homemade bomb in southern Afghanistan, while another died as a result of an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, the NATO force said. Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:59:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=50 Compiled from International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News Releases Officials are investigating a shooting incident today in western Afghanistan's Badghis province that left an Afghan National Police member, two International Security Assistance Force servicemembers and a civilian dead. The cause of the shooting incident is still unclear, ISAF Joint Command officials said, but reports indicate that during a mentoring session between ISAF forces and Afghan National Police, an ANP member fired several rounds and ISAF members returned fire. The ANP member was killed, along with the two ISAF soldiers and the civilian. Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:35:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=49 By Donna Miles With the last full brigade of U.S combat troops now out of Iraq and another 6,000 to leave by the month's end, the mission in Iraq continues with the transition to stability operations, Army Maj. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, spokesman for U.S. Forces - Iraq, told reporters, "Our mission still continues," Lanza said on the CBS "Early Show." "We're going to transition from combat operations to stability operations, and we're doing that as we're drawing down our forces right now to 50,000 by 1 September." Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:02:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=48 By Pfc. Kimberly Hackbarth, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division The last U.S. combat brigade here completed a symbolic convoy out of country early today, reminiscent of U.S. forces first pushing into Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.  The Soldiers, with the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, just completed their yearlong tour of assisting, training and advising Iraqi Security Forces in and around Baghdad. As one of the lead elements in a company-size formation of Stryker armored vehicles, Pfc. Thomas Johnson and Spc. Adam Porter—both combat engineers with the 38th Engineer Company, attached to the 4th SBCT, 2nd Infantry Division—had driven collectively more than 400 miles on the unruly and sometimes deadly roads from here to Kuwait in a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle. Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:35:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=47 By Aziz Alwan and Leila Fadel A suicide bomber infiltrated a crowd of young Iraqi army applicants Tuesday and detonated explosives, killing at least 51 people and wounding 104 others in an early-morning attack two weeks before U.S. forces are scheduled to end their combat mission in Iraq. As hundreds of men lined up in central Baghdad to hand in documents on the last day of a week-long application process, the bomber slipped into the crowd in an open area outside Iraq's former Defense Ministry building, now an army recruitment center and military base. A U.S. military training team is based in the building near the site of the 6:30 a.m. blast. Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:45:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=46 By DEB RIECHMANN and AMIR SHAH One of the gunmen who killed 10 charitable health workers in northern Afghanistan hitched a ride with the medical team shortly before the murders, the sole survivor of the attack told The Associated Press on Saturday. "God was good to me," the team's surviving driver, Safiullah, said in an interview punctuated by long pauses and tears for his slain colleagues. On Aug. 5, the day of the attack, the medical team stopped to give three men a lift — a common courtesy in the rugged, remote area. Soon after, 10 members of the International Assistance Mission — six Americans, three Afghans, one German and a Briton — lay dead. It was a tragic finale to the team's more than two-week mission covering about 100 miles (160 kilometers) — much of it on foot and horseback — through the Hindu Kush mountains, giving vision and other medical care to impoverished villagers in Nuristan province. Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:27:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=45 The Department of Defense announced today that Ibrahim al Qosi was sentenced to 14 years in confinement for conspiracy and providing material support to al Qaeda. The sentencing hearing took place in a military commission courtroom at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  It follows al Qosi’s guilty plea in July.  During his guilty plea, al Qosi admitted that he engaged in hostilities against the United States in violation of the laws of war.  He admitted that he intentionally supported al Qaeda since at least 1996, when Osama bin Laden issued an order urging his followers to commit acts of terrorism against the United States. Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:20:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=44 By SAAD ABDUL-KADIR A suicide car bomber struck a police patrol west of Baghdad Sunday and killed eight people, most of them civilians standing in line outside a post office to collect the monthly stipend for the country's poorest, police officials said. The blast comes just a day after explosions tore through a market in the south killing 43 people. Violence across Iraq has spiked in the past month as the U.S. moves ahead with a major drawdown of its troops set to be completed by the end of the month. Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:14:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=43 A suicide bomber struck a convoy of Afghan and NATO-led forces Thursday in northern Afghanistan, killing seven policemen and wounding several people, including civilians, the interior ministry said. Largely active in the south and east, the Taliban have stepped up attacks in recent months in some areas of the north, regarded until recently as relatively safe. The bomber drove his car, laden with explosives, into a joint convoy of Afghan police and foreign forces in Imam Saheb district of northern Kunduz province, close to the border with Tajikistan, the interior ministry said. Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:06:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=42 By Craig Whitlock The U.S. military is on the verge of activating a partial missile shield over southern Europe, part of an intensifying global effort to build defenses against Iranian missiles amid a deepening impasse over the country's nuclear ambitions. Pentagon officials said they are nearing a deal to establish a key radar ground station, probably in Turkey or Bulgaria. Installation of the high-powered X-band radar would enable the first phase of the shield to become operational next year. At the same time, the U.S. military is working with Israel and allies in the Persian Gulf to build and upgrade their missile defense capabilities. The United States installed a radar ground station in Israel in 2008 and is looking to place another in an Arab country in the gulf region. The radars would provide a critical early warning of any launches from Iran, improving the odds of shooting down a missile. Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:41:00 +0000 http://www.iacsp.com/special.php?mnid=41 Terry Grant, from the TV series ‘Mantracker,’ shows British soldiers a method for spotting IEDs during a training exercise in Alberta, Canada. The Canadian cowboy and reality TV star "Mantracker" is training British soldiers how to spot IEDs when they're in Afghanistan. The cowboy, star and professional tracker is Terry Grant, aged 52, famed for his show in which he tracks contestants over vast swathes of the Canadian wilderness. Now, he's passing on his unique ground sign awareness skills to the soldiers of 7th Armoured Brigade (the Desert Rats) who're set to deploy to Afghanistan next year. The Desert Rats are currently training on Exercise Prairie Thunder 1 at the British Army Training Unit Suffield located in the heart of the vast plains of Alberta in west Canada. Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:20:00 +0000