Above: Afghan police, face serious danger

Taliban militants pulled off a sneak attack on Monday, killing 11 policemen sleeping on a mud floor in southern Afghanistan. They crept through groves of grape vines and pomegranate trees and struck at midnight. The small police outpost is found 15 miles north of Kandahar – a former Taliban stronghold.

The first casualty was an officer on the roof of the compound who was supposed to keep watch of the premises and the surrounding area. Afterwards, the Taliban easily gained access into the compound, walked straight inside, and peppered the officers sleeping on mattresses and blankets on the dirt floor.

Above: Riyadh al-Nouri assasinated

Riyadh al-Nouri, director of al-Sadr’s office in Najaf, was assassinated by yet an unknown number of gunmen near his home.

Muqtada al-Sadr blamed the Americans and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government for the killing.

In his statement Friday, al-Sadr blamed the killing on “the hands of the occupiers and their stooges reaching out traitorously and aggressively against our dear martyr.”

But ironically, the Shiite leader called for calm.

“I call upon Sadrist followers to be patient.”

Above: Islam jihad attack Israel

Two Israeli civilians were killed in a cross-border raid on the Israeli Gaza border by Palestinian militants.

At least four gunmen stormed the fuel depot at Nahal Oz in broad daylight. The depot is the main depot from which all fuel supplies are piped into Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza, over the past few days, have complained about the shortage of gasoline in their area. Israeli officials said fuel supplies had been sent in through this depot every day, including the day of the attack. The two civilians who were killed were employees of the Israeli energy company that provided the fuel. Because of this attack, the continuous supply of fuel might be in jeopardy.

Above: US Soldier in Iraq

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are the two top officials in Iraq located on Capitol Hill this week to report on the know about in the Iraq war, thou there is not much to expect that the US policy will probably have so little change before the year ends and before the arrival of America’s next president.

Above: CIA torture

The Pentagon has recently made public a five year old Justice Department memo that approves of harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists.

The memo is dated March 14, 2003. It was written by John Yoo (pictured below), who was at the time deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

Below: John Yoo

The memo legally justifies the military’s use of torture tactics against al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees overseas. The catch is that the torture is not supposed to be directly intended – which is stupid since torture techniques are all pre-empted as it uses different tools to inflict pain.