European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 23, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Pages stars and stripes monday april 23 2007 an iraqi Man watches soldiers from Alpha troop 3rd Squadron 1st cavalry regiment 3d infantry division search his Home on sunday for clues about a Roadside bomb attack in the Village of a maj Ahreen 25 Miles East of Baghdad 23 killed in apparent revenge attack by Lauren Frayer the associated press Baghdad gunmen in Northern Iraq stopped a bus filled with christians and members of a tiny mostly kurdish religious sect on sunday police said Sepa rating out the groups and taking 23 of the passengers away to be shot the attack came on a violent Day in Baghdad with at least 20 people killed in car bombings most in a double suicide strike against a police station in a religiously mixed neighbourhood police said the execution style killings of the primarily kurdish sect that worships an Angel figure considered to be the Devil by some muslims and Chris appeared to be in response to the stoning death of a Yazidi woman who had recently converted to islam iraqi prime minister Nouri Almalik said sunday that he has ordered a halt to the construction of a Barrier that would separate a sunni enclave from surrounding shiite areas in Baghdad saying there Are other ways to protect the neighbourhood the us military announced last week that it was building a Large Concrete Wall in the North Ern Adham Yah Section of Bagh dad in an Effort to protect the minority sunnis from attacks by Shi ites living nearby in his first Public comments on the Issue Almalik said he had or dered the construction to Stop i oppose the building of the Wall and its construction will Stop Almalik told reporters Dur ing a joint news conference with the Secretary general of the Arab league Amr Moussa in Cairo Egypt in the Northern Iraq killings armed men in several cars stopped the bus As it was carrying workers from the Mosul textile factory to their Hometown of Bashika which has a mixed popu lation of christians and Mazidis the gunmen checked Passen Gers identification then asked the christians to get off the bus said police Brig Mohammed Alwag a with the Mazidis still inside the gunmen drove them to Eastern Mosul where they were lined up along a Wall and shot to death Alwag a said in a religiously mixed neighbor Hood in Western Baghdad two Sui us deaths in Iraq the associated press As of saturday at least 3319 members of the us military have died since the beginning of the Iraq War in March 2003 according Tran associated press count the figure includes seven military civilians at least 2691 died As a result of hostile action according to the Mili Tarys numbers the a count is eight higher than the defense departments Las updated Friday at 10 the latest deaths reported by the military a Marine died Friday Dur ing combat in Anbar province a Marine was killed Satur Day by an explosive Southwest of Baghdad a Soldier was killed Satur Day by an explosive and Small arms fire in southwestern Baghdad a Soldier was killed Satur Day by Small arms fire in East Ern Baghdad cide car bombers attacked a police station police said Billing at least 13 people and turning near by buildings into piles of rubble the first Driver raced through a police checkpoint guarding the station and exploded his vehicle just outside the two Story build ing police said moments later a second suicide car bomber aimed at the Concrete Barri ers arid exploded just outside them police said elsewhere in the capitals Southwest a parked car bomb exploded killing seven civilians and wounding 42 police said a Road Side bomb then struck a police patrol coming to Check on the blast about 15 minutes later killing one officer in All at least 72 people were killed or found dead in Iraq including 24 Bullet riddled bodies and two Brothers who were shot to death in the volatile City of Fallu Jah a Day after the chairman of the cites Council was assassinated the us military also reported the deaths of three soldiers on sat urday three blasts in Eastern Afghanistan leave 11 dead by Amir Shah the associated press Kabul Afghanistan a Sui cide bomber blew himself up Sun Day in an Eastern afghan City kill ing six civilians and wounding 40 others officials said while a Road Side blast bit an afghan Intelli gence service vehicle killing All four people in the car the Remote controlled Road Side bomb killed two intelligence service officers a Soldier and their Driver said lag Man provincial police chief Abdul Karim the attack took place in the provincial capital Meh tar Lam the enemy is not Brave enough to fight facet face with the afghan army Karim said they have to resort to suicide and Roadside bombs police acting on a tip in the Eastern City of Khost tried to Stop a suspicious looking Man said provincial police chief Gen Mohammad Ayub when he tried to flee police chased him and opened fire at which Point he detonated his explosives Ayub said an earlier bomb attack at a shop in a Khost Market killed a shopkeeper and injured eight peo ple Ayub said describing me Inci Dent As a dispute Between differ ent tribes in neighbouring Pattia prov Ince suspected Taliban militants ambushed a police patrol Satur Day in the format District and the ensuing clash left five militants and a police officer dead said a Tia police chief Abdul Rahman Saran officers recovered five Mili Tants bodies with their weapons and one of their vehicles Saran said in Nang arhar province us and afghan troops killed one per son and detained nine others Dur ing a raid on a compound Satur Day the used coalition said in a statement the compound was used by people the coalition accused of involvement in facilitating sever Al suicide attacks in recent weeks general key to building iraqi air Force is training More pilots by Helen he stars and stripes biggest Chal Lenge the United states faces in helping rebuild the iraqi air Force is training More pilots it Gen Martin Dempsey said sunday Dempsey who is in charge of us efforts to train iraqi military and police told reporters that the air Force already uses c130 cargo planes to transport wounded iraqi soldiers to treatment and by the end of the year he said it will be equipped with mi27 and v2 helicopters As Well As surveillance aircraft to help fight the planting of explosives the air Force also expects to get up to 12 Cessna 172 air planes and 16 huh currently has neither and increase its number of mi17 helicopters air Force of of 2007 Jet 5 King air 350 Cessna Cessna source must National Security transition from 10 to 28 by years end but the air Force needs some one to Fly the aircraft and must work on growing pilots said Dempsey commander of multinational Security Transi Tion command Iraq for the most part the air Force stopped flying in 1991 Many of the nations Jet fighters were destroyed during the Gulf War and afterwards the air Force was hemmed in by used nobly zones in the North and South it missed a generation of build ing pilots Dempsey said adding that the goal now is to create about 135 a year at this Point the air Force has three squadrons with 900 trained airmen at the end of 2006 and 2900 expected by the end of this year in other matters Dempsey said that improvements have been made with the much maligned iraqi National police members of that Force tasked with acting As Carabiniero have been accused of corruption and ignoring participating an violence he acknowledged that the police did not react Well after the bombing of a sunni mosque in Samarra in february 2006 which set off spasms of sectarian Vio Lence in Iraq but he said new brigade leaders Are doing a much better Job performing quite Well he also said that theres no magic formula for warding off suicide bombers who continue to penetrate Baghdad and other areas despite the surge of us troops and beefed up Security efforts technology including xray machines at Border controls and devices for detecting explosive powder can help but suicide bombers can still get through he said a three mile Wall being built in a Baghdad neighbourhood to Sepa rate a sunni enclave and a shiite neighbourhood represents the us trying to find a solution to the sectarian violence whether if s successful or not Well see in com ing weeks he said ultimately he said the answer lies with iraqi leaders email Helen Huat