An Afghan and International Security Assistance Force detained more than 10 suspected Haqqani Network insurgents during a security operation targeting senior Haqqani leaders in Khost province yesterday.

The Haqqani Network is an insurgent organization operating primarily in the Paktika, Paktiya, and Khost provinces. They conduct high-profile attacks against Afghan government officials, Afghan national army and coalition forces. Haqqani insurgents are also known to carry out attacks in both, Kabul and Jalalabad.

Joint Security Station Hussayniyah was officially transferred to Iraqi government authority in a ceremony held here, May 14, 2011.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, who has operated from the base since 2010, relinquished its responsibility to the 33rd Iraqi Army Brigade who will use it for its future operations.

60 INSURGENTS WHACKED
Special Forces and Afghan Commandos took out 60 insurgents in an operation in Faryab Province.
http://www.sofmag.com/commandos-ussf-eliminate-60-insurgents-qeysar

Video by ISAF Regional Command South

ATF Phoenix ‘Gunrunner’ shakeup as Lieberman backs long gun reports

The management shakeup at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Phoenix field office is bigger than just a change in the top man as this column reported yesterday.

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-seattle/atf-phoenix-gunrunner-shak...

Article by Dave Workman

Senior leaders of the Pakistani Taliban are vowing to fight with renewed zeal to avenge the death of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.

Pakistani Taliban leaders made the promise in interviews with news agencies broadcast on Wednesday, the same day at least 70 suspected Taliban insurgents launched two attacks on a Pakistani security checkpoint near the Afghan border.

Somaliland is celebrating its 20th anniversary of self-declared independence from Somalia.

Despite not being recognized as a nation by the international community, Somaliland has been very successful politically and economically. And it’s avoided the turmoil of Somalia.

“I guess what I see is a remarkable success story,” said Mark Bradbury, author of Becoming Somaliland, who works with the Rift Valley Institute, a non-profit research, education and advocacy organization. Bradbury first visited Somaliland in 1992, when the capital, Hargeisa, looked very different that it does today.

Guatemala's government has declared a "state of siege" in the Peten region near Mexico's border in response to the recent massacre of nearly 30 field workers on a ranch in the area.

President Alvaro Colom has said the state of siege - which suspends constitutional guarantees - was put into effect to give authorities time to track down the killers.

The government has blamed Mexico's Zetas drug gang for the massacre, which has been described as one of Guatemala's worst mass killings in a generation. Police have said most of the victims were beheaded.

The Vietnamese People’s Army has killed at least 72 Hmong Christian and animist religious believers, many of them mainstream Catholic and orthodox Protestant Christians, according to the Center for Public Policy Analysis and Hmong and Laotian non-governmental organizations with sources inside the region that borders on Laos.