Although the front in Lebanon is claiming the bulk of the press, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan continues, and our troops continue to succeed anywhere the enemy masses forces,

below from the Centaf Air Power summary from 7/26:

In Afghanistan July 25, an Air Force B-1 Lancer provided close-air support for coalition troops taking small arms fire from Taliban extremists near Musah Qal’eh. The B-1 expended guided bomb unit-31s and 38s on multiple enemy positions and an ambush site, ending the engagements.

Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs provided close-air support for coalition troops in contact with Taliban extremists near Kabul and Tarin Kowt.

An Air Force B-1 and A-10s also provided close-air support to coalition troops in contact with enemy forces near Lashkar Gar.
In Iraq, Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles provided close-air support to troops in contact with anti-Iraqi forces near Al Mahmudiyah and Baghdad.

Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons also provided close-air support to troops in contact with anti-Iraqi forces near Ad Diwaniyah.

In Iraq signs that citizens are flatly fed up with terrorism continues, with captured and killed terrorists, and freed hostages in raids derived from local intelligence and Iraqi army leads:

U.S. soldiers with Multinational Division Baghdad captured five members of a “death squad” in Iraq today.

The soldiers, from 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, captured the terrorists during a cordon-and-search operation in Mahmudiyah around 1:40 a.m. Officials said one of the detainees is a leader of the group.

In a separate incident, soldiers from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd BCT, detained a wanted terrorist in southwestern Baghdad around 2:30 a.m. today during a dismounted cordon-and-search mission.

The terrorist was discovered after soldiers entered a house in which they believed the target was hiding. They also detained another suspect in the house. Soldiers then moved to the house next door, where they detained two more wanted suspects. No injuries or damage to MNDB personnel or equipment were reported.

Elsewhere, soldiers from Multinational Division Baghdad’s Troop A, 1st Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, seized weapons in southeastern Baghdad around 5 a.m. today.

While acting on a tip from an Iraqi citizen, soldiers searched a cement factory and found a sniper rifle, an AK-47 rifle, a PKC machine gun, two hand grenades, a pair of military-style binoculars, and 379 rounds of ammunition. The soldiers also detained four suspected terrorists.

In other news from Iraq, U.S. military officials announced today that U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers rescued three hostages July 23.

Marines from Regimental Combat Team 5’s, 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, and soldiers from 2nd and 4th Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division, rescued the three Iraqi hostages in an “intelligence-driven” operation, officials said. The three were personal assistants and bodyguards to Dr. Rafa Hayid Chiad Al-Isaw, an Iraqi government official in Baghdad.

What is also heartening about these stories is that the weapons caches are becoming fewer, and smaller in potential destruction capabilities.

In further proof of the neglect that led up to the current world war, we have this story, which details the sanctions that should have stopped China from transferring the C-802/Noor missile technology used against Israel to Iran during the Clinton Administration:

Without a doubt, however, the July 14 near-catastrophic attack against the modern and stealthy Israeli corvette Hanit would not have been possible without the C-802//Noor anti-ship missile, the means to produce which were sold by China to Iran in the mid-1990s. The transfer should have triggered U.S. sanctions of the PRC under the 1992 Gore-McCain Act (Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act), but was ignored by the Clinton-Gore administration — despite testimony from former U.S. Navy 5^th Fleet commander Admiral Redd, echoed by State’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Einhorn, that the missiles presented “a 360-degree threat” to U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, and House Resolution 105-304 (October 6, 1997) “Urging the Executive branch to take action regarding the acquisition by Iran of C-802 cruise missiles.”

Little Green Footballs points out two Hezbollah attacks on UNIFIL, one of them direct and intentional.

In Israel the IDF forces have continue to pound Hezbollah in Bint Jbel, with casualties on both sides but Hezbollah suffering the most. Arutz Sheva points out how Hezbollah is holding citizens and the holy places of Lebanon hostage to use as shields, while an officer from the Canadian UNIFIL contingent explains how Hizbullah uses UNIFIL as a shield:

Hizbullah refused to allow civilians to leave their village and used mosques in their ambush on IDF soldiers at Bint Jbeil Wednesday. Names of the nine fallen soldiers were released. Morale is high.

Hizbullah stored ammunition and weapons in mosques, knowing that the IDF does not attack religious sites. Civilians were not allowed to leave so that Hizbullah could use them as cover. IDF officers said they ordered pilots not to strafe Bint Jbeil in order to spare civilian casualties.

A United Nations peace keeping officer from Canada told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that Hizbullah used the same tactic to draw fire on the UNIFIL post which resulted in the death of four U.N. observers. “This is their favorite trick,” he said. “They use the U.N. as shields.”

Meanwhile, this article points out that Nasrullah is traveling to Damascus, and will be meeting with the head of Iran’s nuclear program. This to me seems highly ominous as earlier I reported of the radioactive material suitable for dirty bombs that was intercepted in Bulgaria. From Jerusalem Post:

A top Iranian envoy was in Syria on Thursday for talks on the Israeli-Hizbullah conflict in a meeting that brought together the guerrilla organization’s two key sponsors, according to Iranian news reports. A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah was taking part in the session.

Kuwait’s Al-Siyassah newspaper, known for its opposition to the Syrian regime, said the meeting was designed to discuss ways to maintain supplies to Hezbollah fighters with “Iranian arms flowing through Syrian territories.”

Al-Siyassah said it learned of the meeting from “well-informed Syrian sources” it did not identify. According to the newspaper, Nasrallah was moving through Damascus with Syrian guards in an intelligence agency car. He was dressed in civilian clothes, not his normal clerical garb.

The Mehr news agency in Iran said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was in Damascus for meetings on the crisis, but gave no other details. Similar reports were carried by the Iranian Labor News Agency and the Fars agency.

Al-Siyassah said Larijani would meet Syrian President Hafez Assad and Nasrallah.

There was no mention of Larijani’s travels in Iranian state-run media.

CT Blog also has a good article analyzing the probable coming conflict between Ethiopia and the Islamic Courts Islamofascists linked to Al Qaida who currently control Somalia. (Islamic Courts denies the connection, but we will see how they behave in the wake of the latest Al Zawahiri call to arms.)

In Bangladesh, Terror alerts are raised as reported by the Times of India turn on pop-up blocker first!)

The Bangladesh government has sounded an alert ahead of the first anniversary of the multiple blasts that rocked the nation last August even as the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) accused of triggering them face a high court trial next month.
The government has alerted the law enforcement and intelligence network, warning that the banned Islamist outfit “might go for further attacks at any place, any time,” The Daily Star reported.
The newspaper said reports from its correspondents based in Bangladesh’s north and northeastern regions bordering India indicated that the militants “were trying to regroup after a downturn in their activities due to arrest of most of their top leaders.”

Border tensions increase between India and Bangladesh:

India Thursday accused Bangladesh of mobilizing troops on the border along the northeastern state of Assam and encouraging its nationals to encroach on Indian territory for cultivation, officials said.

“The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) have strengthened its defence by digging trenches and morchas (bunkers) which demonstrates their aggressive posture, Ashwini Kumar Singh, Deputy Inspector General of India’s Border Security Force (BSF), said in a statement.

The BSF commander said frontier guards of the two countries clashed on June 28 after BDR soldiers resorted to “unprovoked” gunfire near the Harinagar area in southern Assam’s Cachar district, about 320 kilometers from the state’s main city of Guwahati.

“BDR soldiers were also encouraging and instigating their civilians to continue illegal cultivation inside Indian land”, the statement said.

The immediate provocation for the June 28 firing was over a strip of land measuring 216 acres near the Surma river which Bangladesh claims as their territory.

India maintains the land is not disputed and falls inside the border pillar that separates the two countries. “BSF being a disciplined force is maintaining maximum restraint in order to avoid inconvenience to our border population”, Singh said.

With Islamofascists, it’s always over the land they control.