GI Special: thomasfbarton@earthlink.net 11.24.03
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GI SPECIAL #141
Win For Our Side: Bush Ally Gone As Troops Join Rebellion
Protest Works. Revolution Works Too: Opposition supporters celebrate Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation, in Tbilisi, Nov. 23, Shevardnadze, under increasing pressure for weeks over fraud in parliamentary elections, announced his resignation Sunday.(AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)
EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOVE #1: THE SOLDIERS LATER JOINED THE
UPRISING An opposition supporter offers flowers to troops in Tbilisi, Georgia Nov.
22, 2003. Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze was hustled out of the parliament
building after opposition supporters broke in and seized the speaker's podium. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOVE #2: A girl from the opposition movement
embraces an army officer guard of the residence of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, during celebration in Tbilisi.(AFP/Sergei Supinsky)
RESULTS: SOLDIERS JOIN THE UPRISING THAT OVERTHROWS THE GOVERNMENT
SOLDIERS JOIN THE UPRISING: Opposition supporters, some atop an Armored Personnel Carrier, celebrate Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation near his residence in Tbilisi, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2003 (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze) SOLDIERS JOIN THE UPRISING
Happy members of the National Guard, who joined the opposition for protection, show the V-sign in the parliament's yard in Tbilisi.(AFP/Sergei Supinsky)
Georgian Leader Overthrown; Soldiers Join Movement To Force Out Hated President
Georgian opposition supporters wave their flag at a rally in front of parliament overnight.(AFP/Sergei Supinsky) TBILISI, Georgia (AP) 11.23.03- Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze announced his resignation live on Georgian television on Sunday. Some soldiers had joined a crowd of 50,000 opposition protesters who massed in front of parliament Sunday morning as Shevardnadze still clung to power. News of the reported resignation sparked roars and cheers and excited dancing among the tens of thousands of opposition supporters gathered outside the parliament
building, which the opposition seized a day earlier, forcing Shevardnadze to flee the building as he attempted to open the first session of the new parliament elected in the widely denounced Nov. 2 voting. Throughout the day Sunday, the crowd in front of parliament grew to some 50,000 people, dancing and singing. Soldiers defected and joined the protests, embraced and lifted into the air by jubilant demonstrators. Champagne corks flew, and revelers placed flowers into the machine gun barrels of two armored personnel carriers blocking a street. The resignation came after opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili went to Shevardnadze's residence and delivered an ultimatum: resign or face a mass march on the home. "We will go and take the last presidential residence," Saakashvili told protesters before the visit, claiming "almost the entire army has taken the opposition side."
SOLDIERS JOIN UPRISING: CROOK FORCED FROM OFFICE (Former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze: AP Photo/Giorgi Kraveishvili, File)
(OOPS, WRONG CROOKED PRESIDENT)
CORRECTION FOLLOWS:
CROOK FORCED FROM OFFICE, SOLDIERS JOIN UPRISING; (Former President Eduard Shevardnadze: AP Photo/Giorgi Kraveishvili, File)
IRAQ WAR REPORTS:
Convoys Attacks Kill 3 U.S. Troops;
General Shitmouth Kimmitt Says Dead Soldiers “Are Nothing That Causes Us To Be Concerned”
Sunday, November 23, 2003, BAGHDAD (CNN) & By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer
Three U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday in separate attacks on their military convoys in Iraq, according to the U.S. military. Two soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were killed Sunday when their convoy came under attack by small-arms fire in the northern town of Mosul, according to a U.S. Army spokesman. The 101st Airborne Division said its soldiers in Mosul were driving between U.S. garrisons. Witnesses told CNN the soldiers were shot and wounded while riding in a civilian vehicle. Men then cut the soldiers' throats while they were still in the vehicle and a crowd of Iraqis, including children, stripped their bodies of personal effects and weapons, the witnesses said. Bahaa Jassim, a teenager, said the soldiers' vehicle crashed into a wall after the shooting. Several dozen passers-by then descended on the wreckage, looting the car and the soldiers' backpacks. After the soldiers' bodies fell into the street, the crowd pummeled them with concrete blocks, Jassim said. Mosul has seen increasing anti-occupation violence after months of relative quiet. Another U.S. soldier was killed and two were wounded Sunday morning near Ba'qubah, north of Baghdad, when a military convoy hit a roadside bomb, according to a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division. The wounded soldiers are in a stable condition, the spokesman said. In addition, vehicle accidents claimed the lives of three other soldiers Friday and Saturday. Two 1st Armored Division soldiers were killed and one was injured in a traffic accident Nov. 22. An M-1 Abrams tank struck a HUMVEE at approximately 10:30 p.m. near Baghdad International Airport. The injured soldier was taken to the 28th Combat Support Hospital for treatment. One 4th Infantry Division soldier died in an apparent drowning when the vehicle the soldier was driving slid off the road and went into an adjacent canal. Soldiers were in pursuit of a suspicious vehicle, near Balad, at approximately 9:15 p.m. on Nov. 21, when the incident occurred. Other soldiers in the vehicle attempted to extricate the soldier but were initially unsuccessful. The soldier was removed from the submerged vehicle a short time later. Attempts made to resuscitate the soldier were unsuccessful. The deaths bring the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in the Iraq war to 432 -- 300 of them under hostile conditions.
Despite the losses, a U.S. Military spokesman said the guerrilla attacks are not having a major impact on the occupation forces' mission in Iraq. "This is a enemy that cannot defeat us militarily, and in engagement after engagement, we see the enemy breaking off, running away," he told reporters. (Calling dickhead military spokesman? That’s what a guerrilla war is about, hitting, and leaving. This whining sounds like the British generals who used to complain about the American revolutionaries, who didn’t stand around waiting for the Redcoats to shoot them either. Or, more recently, the kind of witless bullshit the military put out in Vietnam: “Lookie lookie, the evil Viet Cong hit and run away. They can’t defeat us.” As we all know, England defeated George Washington, and Westmoreland defeated Ho Chi Minh.) Elsewhere, an Iraqi police colonel in charge of protecting oil installations was assassinated in northern Iraq, part of what appeared to be an insurgent campaign against U.S.-backed security forces. Col. Abdul-Salam Qanbar, who oversaw police in Mosul, was fatally shot Saturday evening while heading to a mosque, a spokesman said.
US soldiers pull a damaged Humvee hit in Baaquba in the early morning.(AFP/Ali Yousif)
The Iraqi chief of police in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, and two officers were also killed Sunday when the car they were riding in was attacked by small-arms fire. U.S. authorities in Iraq suspended civilian flights into Baghdad's international airport Sunday after a cargo plane was damaged by a surface-to-air missile over the weekend. Military air traffic into Baghdad will continue, Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor said.
An explosion at an oil compound near the northern city of Kirkuk injured four employees Saturday night, according to Iraqi Northern Oil Co. spokesman Mike McAleer. A preliminary investigation indicated that the blast at the oil company's Baba Cultural Social Club was caused by a bomb, McAleer said. The blast occurred overnight on the compound of the National Oil Co. Employees of the U.S. firm Kellogg Brown & Root suffered facial cuts from flying glass, Croke said. Iraqi civilians flagged down an Iraqi Railroad train early Sunday to prevent it from approaching an improvised explosive device placed on the tracks near the town of Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad. Central Command said the bomb was made of three 155mm artillery rounds linked together. An ordnance disposal team attached to the 82nd Airborne Division disarmed the device, and the rail line reopened. But Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military deputy director for operations. Kimmitt said the coalition was "not worried in the least" by the continuing attacks on its forces. "We have nothing at this point that causes us to be concerned," he said. "This is an enemy that cannot defeat us militarily." (What, do they hand these babblers a script every morning? This is the same line as the “spokesman” above. “Who, us worry?” Where do they find these pompous assholes? (These disgusting words should be handed to every soldier serving in Iraq, so they all know that dead soldiers are not “the least” worry and “nothing that causes us to be concerned” to their shiteating General. Do you suppose a dead general or two would get his attention, maybe even cause just a little tiny little bit of worry? That is certainly a development devoutly to be wished for. How high does the stack of body bags have to get before Brig. Gen Kimmitt worries?)
NOTHING OF CONCERN TO THE GENERAL
“Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing;” Silly U.S. Tactic Meets Hopeless Situation; Officer Says Odds Are With Resistance
Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Daniel Williams, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5040-2003Nov21.html BAGHDAD, Nov. 21 -- The U.S. military is using 2,000-pound bombs and precisionguided missiles in Iraq for the first time since April as part of a tactical shift designed in part to intimidate resistance fighters. Despite the intensity of the bomb and artillery strikes, Iraqis living near the target areas and even some U.S. officers say they consider the offensive more symbolic than substantial. They contend most of targeted structures -- some of which were unremarkable, single-story brick buildings -- were empty when they were hit. And they insist that the new tactics, which have featured deafening nighttime strafing runs by AC-130 Spectre gunships and A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, have frightened ordinary people more than insurgents. The decision to demolish houses suspected of sheltering insurgents resembles a tactic long in use by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to punish the families of Palestinian resistance bombers. Like the Israelis, troops with the 4th Infantry have also flattened wide swaths on roadsides to inhibit the laying of bombs. The Israeli-Palestinian analogy was much on the minds of the newly homeless in Hawijat Ali, a rural hamlet near Tikrit. Earlier this week, U.S. tanks and a helicopter gunship flattened one house and heavily damaged three others after an unsuccessful search for a pair of suspected insurgents. "The Americans want to follow the Israeli plan," said Hamed Hassan, an elderly resident of Hawijat Ali. "It doesn't work there. Why will it work here?" The War On Trees In Baqubah, a city about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, a pair of F-16 jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on abandoned buildings in the countryside north of the city and the Army used mortars to pepper trees near the village of Salah. Inspection of the tree-lined area revealed some tattered branches and bark scarred by shrapnel and indistinct craters among scrub and brownish dirt.
While the Americans have a vast array of weaponry, targets are not easy to come by, Lt. Robert Small of the 200th Engineer Company, which is attached to the 4th Infantry acknowledged. At this stage in resistance activity, the guerrillas hold no swaths of territory, operate in small groups and continue to organize so loosely that finding someone or something to hit is difficult, U.S. officers say.
THIS WILL SHOW THEM—(WHY THEY SHOULD JOIN THE RESISTANCE): “There comes a time when every measure of repression only arouses resistance, and every concession only arouses contempt.” L. Trotsky. An Iraqi inspects home which was destroyed in the U.S. air raid two days ago in Khalidiyah west of Baghdad, Nov. 23, 2003. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed The insurgents, on the other hand, have no trouble finding objectives to attack. In Baqubah, the insurgents have tried to assassinate the mayor, placed bombs under the cars of Iraqis who cooperate with the Americans and recently lobbed mortar shells into the city's central square while aiming for the U.S. military civil affairs office. "When we were on the march into Iraq, we had the advantage of targets," Small said. "Now it's the other way around. The odds are with them." Among the targets his officers identified as worthy of strikes has been a former textile factory on the city's southern fringe. Military officials said the factory, located in an industrial area near a highway, was used as a "meeting, planning and rendezvous point" for resistance fighters who had fired mortars at a nearby U.S. base at least twice. Nearby residents said they have been perplexed and scared by the decision to fire at the factory again and again. Jassim Nussaif, a former guard at the factory who lives about a half a mile away, said he saw insurgents fire mortar shells at the American base from an intersection near the factory, but not inside the building. "It was abandoned," said Nussaif, a short, bearded man. The insurgents, he said, "would just drive up and shoot and leave. They never stayed in the factory."
OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
Complete waste of time: US soldiers man a checkpoint looking for weapons moments after a surface-to-air missile was fired at a cargo plane in Baghdad.(AFP/Patrick Baz) BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW!
TROOP NEWS
Fraudulent Letter-Writing Blitz: Did Commander Get Help From Higher Up?
November 24, 2003 Army Times, Robert F. Dorr The writer, an Air Force veteran, lives in Oakton, Va. He is the author of numerous books, including “Air Force One.” The American officer corps, once admired around the world largely because it was apolitical, now seems overwhelmingly to have a single view of the world that’s identical to that of the Bush White House. Service members ought to be able to express their opinions, regardless of what viewpoint they hold. But something went terribly wrong when it was discovered Oct. 11 that identical form letters apparently signed by different U.S. soldiers in Iraq were appearing in newspapers all over the country.
When the fraud was discovered, officials said the form letters were the idea of a handful of soldiers on the headquarters staff of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, at Kirkuk, Iraq. That explanation placed the onus on enlisted members and made the deceit seem innocuous. But then, battalion commander Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo announced that the letter-writing campaign was his idea. Caraccilo is the author of a book about U.S. soldiers in Operation Desert Storm. I wasn’t able to reach him for comment. A press release from the U.S. Army’s European command shows Caraccilo busily leading his battalion. You’ve got to wonder how he found time to orchestrate a letter-writing campaign and look up the addresses of all those hometown papers. Army officials now say 500 form letters were sent. I respect Caraccilo for his service to our country, but I can’t believe that a lieutenant colonel could have organized such a large campaign without help from higher up — perhaps from very high up in an administration known to use disinformation. “Everyone wants to accuse the media of distorting the news but here it’s the Army distorting the news,” said retired Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Jerry Barker, 51, of Tucson, Ariz. “If the Army says there were 500 letters, there were probably more.” A story in the Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal tells of Army National Guardsmen who were given similar form letters to sign. The guardsmen were stationed nowhere near Caraccilo’s battalion. The Pentagon, or perhaps even the White House, owes us a better explanation of the fake letter-writing campaign. And the media, so often accused of slanting the news, should make efforts to get to the bottom of this episode.
Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and in Iraq, and information about other social protest movements here in the USA. Send requests to address up top. For copies on web site see:http://www.notinourname.net/gi-special/
IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP Iraqi Lawyers Protest Arrests In Mosul
MOSUL, Iraq, Nov 20 (AFP) - About 300 lawyers demonstrated Thursday in this northern city against the arrest by US forces of two colleagues suspected of supporting Saddam Hussein, an AFP correspondent reported. The demonstrators rallied in front of the main court building in the city, carrying banners demanding the release of the lawyers' provincial association head, Ballawi Yassin, and Hoda Hilali, a member of the union's board. They were arrested Tuesday, said a member of the board, Kamal Hamdun. He said there were no hearings in the courts of Mosul Thursday because the lawyers also decided a strike. The arrest of the two lawyers "is contrary to all laws, they are not supporters (of Saddam), they were democratically elected to the union board after the war" that toppled the former president, he said.
The face of the enemy? An Iraqi melon vendor fixes the shoe on his donkey in a marketplace in the southern town of Samawa November 13. (REUTERS/Hazir Reka)
THANKS TO B WHO E-MAILED THIS IN: B WRITES: Innocent melon vender or determined resistance fighter smuggling ammo to a cell on the other side of town? Or both?
GET SOME TRUTH: CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER Telling the truth - about the occupation, the cuts to veterans benefits, or the dangers of depleted uranium - is the first reason Traveling Soldier is necessary. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance - whether it's in the streets of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces. Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces. If you like what you've read, we hope that you'll join with us in building a network of active duty organizers. http://www.traveling-soldier.org/
Excellent advice: US soldiers stand behind graffiti reading 'US army go back home'.(AFP/File/Patrick Baz)
OCCUPATION REPORT
Occupation Fires 28,000 Teachers; Washington Officials Denounce Bremer Stupidity; “All You Were Doing Was Pissing Off People,” CIA Official Says
UPI - Friday, November 21, 2003 American's top man in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, last week fired 28,000 Iraqi teachers as political punishment for their former membership in the Saddam Hussein-dominated Baath Party, fueling anti-U.S. resistance on the ground, administration officials have told United Press International. The Central Command spokesman attributed the firings to "tough, new anti-Baath Party measures" recently passed by the U.S.-created Iraqi Governing Council. "It's a piece of real stupidity on the part of the neocons to try and equate the Baath Party with the Nazis," said former CIA official Larry Johnson. Facing a spreading insurgency, this was "not the time to turn out into the street more recruits for the anti-U.S. insurgency," Johnson said.
"It's an incredible error," said former senior CIA official and Middle East expert Graham Fuller. "In Germany, after World War II, the de-nazification program was applied with almost surgical precision in order not to antagonize German public opinion. In the case of Iraq, ideologues don't seem to grasp the seriousness of their acts." Administration officials told UPI that from the beginning of Bremer's arrival in Iraq, the Bush administration has consistently misplayed the issue of Iraq's former ruling Sunni group, most of whom were members of the Baath, but who are also the most able and knowledgeable administrators in the country. In addition, many able government employees joined the Baath Party not out of any special political sympathies, but simply to attain or retain their jobs. "The anti-Baath edicts, all of which are ideological nonsense, have been an outright disaster," a State Department official said. "Whatever happened to politics as the art of the possible?" "All we have done is to have alienated one of the most politically important portions of the Iraqi population," another administration official said. According to several serving and former U.S. intelligence officials, the latest firings are only one of a series of what one State Department official called "disastrous misjudgments." "All you were doing were pissing off people who were armed and had no place to go," a former senior CIA official said. But in today's Iraq, in spite of steadily escalating attacks on U.S. forces, the desire of the IGC to enforce political correctness produced "incoherence, chaos and disorganization," one Pentagon official said. A former Garner team member was quoted in last week's Newsweek as saying the vetting process for Iraqis "got so bad that even doctors sent to restore medical services had to be anti-abortion" -- an article of faith in the Bush administration. When Secretary of State Colin Powell protested directly to Rumsfeld, he ignored Powell, the Newsweek source said.
The Real “Axis Of Evil:” U.S. Seeks Advice From Israel On Iraq; Cooperation Growing Between Terrorist States
Esther Schrader and Josh Meyer, LA Times http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fgusisrael22nov22,1,7715171.story?coll=la-home-headlines WASHINGTON — Facing a bloody insurgency by guerrillas who label it an "occupier," the U.S. military has quietly turned to an ally experienced with occupation and uprisings: Israel. In the last six months, U.S. Army commanders, Pentagon officials and military trainers have sought advice from Israeli intelligence and security officials on everything from how to set up roadblocks to the best way to bomb suspected guerrilla hide-outs in an urban area. the Pentagon is increasingly seeking advice from the Israeli military on how to defeat the sort of insurgency that Israel has long experience confronting. Many of the tactics recently adopted by the U.S. in Iraq — increased use of airpower, aerial surveillance by unmanned aircraft of suspected sites, increased use of pinpoint search and seizure operations, the leveling of buildings used by suspected insurgents — bear striking similarities to those regularly employed by Israel.
RECRUITING FOR THE IRAQI RESISTANCE MOVEMENT ISRAELI STYLE: Iraqi family wait outside their home while US Army soldiers search the area in the village of Ouja. (AFP/Mauricio Lima)
Two Israeli officials — one from the Jerusalem police force and a second from the Israel Defense Forces — confirmed on condition of anonymity that U.S. officials had visited Israel to gain insight into police and military tactics. They also said Israeli officials have visited Washington to discuss the issues. U.S. military officials also have reviewed a common Israeli tactic of conducting house-by-house searches for armed fighters by knocking down interior walls with a portable battering ram. The tactic eliminates the need to pass through doors and windows — one of the most dangerous aspects of urban combat, because of possible booby traps.
In the last week, U.S. soldiers began leveling houses and buildings used by suspected guerrillas, a tactic long employed by the Israeli military in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where they use bulldozers to knock down the homes of militants or their families. "The Americans learned a lot from the Israelis' use of them [bulldozers] in urban combat," a former Israeli official said. "Israelis learned that if you have fighting in an urban area, you just take down the house." After years of working closely together at all levels, the Israeli and U.S. militaries in some respects think increasingly alike, said Shoshana Bryen, director of special projects at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a nonprofit group in Washington interested in links between U.S. and Israeli defense tactics and policy. (When your own policy is floundering, there's no better solution than turning to your terrorist friends who have decades of experience with failed occupations.) Comment on this article from L: “george bush is a terrorist 11/22/2003 3:29:00 PM The Arabs bombed the trade center not the Iraqis. George Bush and his group are terrorists. They are so slimy that they stoop as low as a snake to win their point. They are evil. They are war criminals. They must be stopped before all of mankind is destroyed. They don’t respect God. They think that they are god. They are war criminals and must be stopped, tried, found guilty and be executed.” (Comment: Wrong, “The Arabs” didn’t hit the trade center. An organization of primitive religious fanatics, Al Qaeda, did that. (Made up largely of unemployed middle class intellectuals and funded by millionaires who dream of turning the Middle East back to the 15 th Century, with themselves running things, of course, Al Qaeda have nothing more in common with ordinary people who live in that region than the primitive religious fanatics in the USA who join right wing militias have in common with ordinary people who live here. (Lethal psychopaths are found in every country and every religion. It has to be admitted, however, that capitalism seems to promote more than a few to positions of top political power.)
What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to the E-mail address up top. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK Bush Disapproval Rating Hits New High
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A year before the next presidential election, voters in the United States are about where they were in 2000 on the question of President Bush -split down the middle -- according to a new poll by Time magazine and CNN. Bush's overall job approval rating was at 52 percent, according to the poll, down from its peak of 89 percent in October 2001. His disapproval rating reached a new high, at 43 percent, the poll said.
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Five U.S. Soldiers Die in Copter Crash; More Wounded By Land Mine
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer, 11.23.03 KABUL, Afghanistan - Five U.S. soldiers were killed and seven injured when their helicopter crashed Sunday near the American military headquarters north of the Afghan capital, U.S. Central Command said. The soldiers were involved in an ongoing U.S. military operation, dubbed Mountain Resolve, taking place in the east of the country, the military said. "A U.S. military helicopter crashed today near Bagram, Afghanistan," said a statement sent by e-mail from Central Command, in Tampa, Fla. "Early reports indicate seven service members were injured and at least five service members were killed." It was not clear what caused the crash. Also Sunday, a coalition vehicle struck a land mine while patrolling an area of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, seriously wounding two American soldiers, including one who lost one of his legs. The explosion occurred at about 1 p.m. in Shkin, Paktika province, about 135 miles south of Kabul, the Afghan capital. A coalition base also is located there. The wounded soldiers received initial medical treatment at the scene, then were evacuated by air to a medical facility at nearby Salerno base in the city of Khost, the
statement said. The men were Staff Sgt. Roy Mitchell, of Batesville, Ind., and Sgt. 1st Class Michael Eichner, of Stoington, Penn., officials at Fort Drum in New York state said. Mitchell, 32, suffered burns to his face, neck and back, and had his left leg amputated. Eichner, 31, was wounded by shrapnel in his back and had a broken hand, the officials said. The soldiers were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment. Eastern and southern Afghanistan have become a hotbed of attacks by pro-Taliban and pro-al-Qaida militants targeting coalition forces, U.N. workers and relief agencies. On Friday, the violence hit Kabul when a rocket landed 30 yards from the Intercontinental Hotel, shattering glass but causing no injuries. The hotel, a favorite among foreign visitors, is also near the site of an upcoming loya jirga, or grand council, set to ratify a new constitution in December. If printed out, this newsletter is your personal property and cannot legally be confiscated from you. “Possession of unauthorized material may not be prohibited.” DoD Directive 1325.6 Section 3.5.1.2.