US CASUALTIES AND SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL VIOLENCE SWEEPS IRAQ

The mainstream media is totally swept up in the race for POTUS, and the Iraq war and US casualties are no longer on the media radar screen. Nobody in the media cares that there 160,000 young Americans in Iraq and 30,000 in Afghanistan. The media treats our brave young Americans like they were garbage. IMO, there is nothing worse in the history of the United States than the current crop of owners, editors and reporters who make up the mainstream media. Hopefully someday there will be a military draft and every single one of the media who shunned the brave men and women in Iraq will have one of their own little darlings in camo gear and prowling a street or alley in Baghdad.

Editorial comment by BILL CORCORAN, editor of CORKSPHERE

War News for Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Casualty Reports:Spec. Clay Henson, now 21, of Tuscaloosa was injured on Wednesday in a sneak attack on his convoy that also killed one soldier and injured another. Speaking from his hospital room at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Monday, Henson said he remembers everything about the blast that occurred minutes after his convoy departed on a mission from a base in northern Iraq.'We just pulled out of our base and we got hit,' said Henson, who attended Paul W. Bryant High School. 'We were just driving along and all of a sudden, boom ­— the front of the truck was on fire.' Dazed from the blast and aware of a high-pitched squeal in his ear, Henson did not know that a quarter-inch piece of shrapnel had embedded itself into his brain. His only indication, he said, was that he was bleeding from his head.

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - North soldier during an insurgent attack in Ninewah Province on Tuesday, May 6th. One other soldier were wounded in the attack.

The Canadian Press is reporting the death of a Canadian ISAF soldier in a gun battle in the Pashmul area, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on Tuesday, May 6th. One other soldier was wounded in the attack.

VIOLENCE IS SWEEPING ACROSS IRAQ. HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED IN IRAQ ON TUESDAY.

Reported Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: Iraqi security forces killed 10 militants, arrested 131 others and seized a quantity of weapons during two days of operations in Shula district, northwestern Baghdad, an Iraqi security force spokesman said.#2: On Tuesday, Iraqi officials said at least another four people were killed and 12 wounded in overnight clashes in Sadr City.#3: U.S. and Iraqi troops fought militants in a Shiite neighborhood on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding nine others, an Interior Ministry source said. The troops clashed in the morning with Mahdi Army militiamen who were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns in the Abu Dsheer neighborhood.Around 9am, clashes took place in Abu Desheer between gunmen and police commandos .Three people were killed (including a female student) and nine others were injured.#4: Iraqi soldiers closed down a hospital suspected of treating Shi'ite militiamen in a Baghdad stronghold of cleric Moqtada al -Sadr's Mehdi Army, Iraqi security officials said on Tuesday. The soldiers also raided the Mohammed-Bakr Hakim hospital, arresting 35 workers, including orderlies and cleaners, and forced its closure, said hospital head Dr. Yassin al-Rikabi. "We don't have any staff to receive patients," Rikabi told Reuters, adding that patients had been transferred to another hospital. "At 9 a.m. on Monday around 40 soldiers and their officers stormed the hospital. They gathered all the staff in one place. They beat some people, including me," he said.#5: Around 1 pm two mortar shells hit the Baghdad municipality building at Khulani intersection (downtown Baghdad) .Three employees were killed and 15 were injured (including four guards).Two mortar bombs killed three people and wounded 10 others, including four officers from the Facility Protection Services, which guards government buildings and infrastructure, near Baghdad's municipal headquarters, police said.#6: Around 1:10 pm, a Katyusha missile hit Mansour College at Andalus intersection (downtown Baghdad). Five people were injured, including a female student.#7: Around 1:30pm, two mortar shells hit Shalchiya neighborhood (north Baghdad).twelve people were injured including 5 policemen.#8: Gunmen killed Ayad Hamza, the deputy director of Nahrain University in charge of sciences, and wounded his two sons in a drive-by shooting on Sunday in Mansour district, western Baghdad, an Education Ministry spokeswoman said.#9: Around 5pm, a katyusha missile hit a house near Sarafiyah bridge on the Risafa bank. Five people were injured.#10: Police found three dead bodies in Baghdad neighborhoods today: two were found in Risafa bank (east Baghdad);1 was found in Ubeidi and 1 was found in Shaab .While 1 was found in Hurriyah in Karkh bank(north west Baghdad).Diyala Prv:#1: Suspected Al-Qaeda operatives kidnapped a pro-US tribal chief and family members in a village north of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said. Gunmen grabbed Ibrahim Abdullah al-Mujamai, his wife, their daughter-in-law and a grandchild in a village in the restive province of Diyala, said a local police official who declined to be named. He said the chieftain from the al-Mujamai tribe had been arranging for a Sunni militia group to protect his village against Al-Qaeda attacks and to support American forces deployed in the country.#2: Unidentified gunmen kidnapped a policeman in Jalawlaa district, Diala, on Tuesday, a local police official said."The policeman was kidnapped on the main road linking the district of Qurrat Tabbah to Jalawlaa, northeast of Baaquba, and led him to an unknown place," Maj. Ahmed Khalifa al-Qassab, the Jalawlaa police chief, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.#3: Around 3pm, a roadside bomb targeted Sahwa members at Al-Wijahiyah (12 miles east Baquba).One member was killed and another was injured in that incident.Tikrit:#1: A car bomb attack killed two people and wounded 28 in Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, local officials said.Kirkuk:#1: A roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded seven others on Monday in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.Mosul:#1: A group of armed men opened fire at an Iraqi police patrol on Monday evening, prompting the policemen to fire back, killing two gunmen in al-Nour neighborhood, eastern Mosul," Brig. Khaled Abdul-Sattar, the official spokesman for the Ninewa security operations command, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.#2: Meanwhile, the same source said another armed group attacked a police patrol in al-Mansour neighborhood, southern Mosul, killing two policemen and wounding one civilian near the attack site.#3: Separately, the U.S. military said in a statement Tuesday that a brothel in northern Iraq was attacked the day before. The Americans blamed the attack on al-Qaida insurgents, but local police did not speculate on who carried out the killings. Iraqi police said the attack in Mosul killed three prostitutes and wounded two others.#4: Around 4:30pm, a roadside bomb exploded at Al-Noor neighborhood downtown Mosul city. One policeman was killed in that incident.#5: Two militants accidentally blew themselves up trying to place a bomb on a road south of Mosul, police said.#6: A roadside bomb hit an Iraqi army patrol, killing one soldier and wounding two in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.Afghanistan:#1: A bomb struck a minivan taking Afghan police trainers to work in Afghanistan Tuesday wounding five people, police said. The bomb, fixed to a bicycle, was apparently remotely detonated to blow up as the van passed in the southern city of Kandahar, police Colonel Noor Khan told AFP at the site of the blast. The three police officers in the vehicle were wounded but the driver was unhurt, Khan said. Two passers-by were also injured, including a woman.#2: In a new operation Monday to "degrade militant anti-government operations", coalition troops killed several militants and detained one near the border with Pakistan in the eastern province of Nangarhar, the force said. The soldiers had gone to the area to look for a Taliban fighter suspected of helping foreign militants to operate in Afghanistan, it said. "During the course of the operation, several armed militants were killed when they fired on Coalition forces."#3: A suicide bomber riding a rickshaw attacked a police checkpoint in Pakistan's northwest Tuesday. Police said the suicide attacker rode up to the checkpoint on a bridge in the garrison town of Bannu. He detonated his explosives when officers signaled him to stop, said Dar Ali, the Bannu district police chief. The army said two civilians and one policeman were killed. Police said four of their officers were wounded.#4: gunmen fired on officers guarding a bank in Pakistan's northwest Tuesday. The gunmen struck in Matta, a former militant stronghold in the scenic Swat Valley, where troops were deployed to repel the spread of Islamic militancy from the border region last year. Humayun Khan, a police official in Matta, said several gunmen approached a bank in the town on foot early Tuesday and shot to death two officers standing guard.