Operations
Other Conflicts
Defense Policy / Programs
News Reports

Current Operations

• OIF/OEF Casualty Update 24 Dec 2003 [PDF]

• Transcript: Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing 24 Dec 2003 -- Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director for Operations, Coalition Forces. Also participating Charles Heatley of the British Foreign Office
• HIGH LEVEL FORMER REGIME ELEMENTS HELP 101ST PROVIDE SECURITY IN NORTHERN IRAQ CENTCOM Release 24 Dec 2003-- High-level former regime elements and other Iraqi citizens helped the 101st make northern Iraq a safer place Tuesday by turning over weapons caches.
• MOSUL RAIDS SUCCESSFUL FOR 101ST CENTCOM Release 24 Dec 2003-- The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and Mosul police conducted raids across Mosul Tuesday night capturing 27 individuals involved or associated with anti-coalition activities.
• Rumsfeld, Myers Discuss New Terrorism Alert, Force Levels, Other Issues Washington File 24 Dec 2003 -- There have been important achievements in the fight against terrorism during the past year, but it remains a difficult war that will not be over soon, says Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
• Roadside Explosion, Suicide Bombing Kill U.S. Troops, Iraqis AFPS 24 Dec 2003 -- Separate incidents in Iraq today claimed the lives of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis.
• IRAQ/ATTACK VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- Attackers in Iraq have fired a mortar round at a Baghdad hotel largely occupied by Western journalists and contractors. There are conflicting reports about whether it struck the hotel.
• IRAQ / UNREST VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- Two attacks in northern Iraq have killed several Iraqi civilians and three U-S soldiers. Reports from the Kurdish-controlled north say a suicide bomber killed two police guards and two civilians. The other attack was a roadside bomb that exploded as a U-S military vehicle passed by.
• IRAQ / UNREST VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- The U-S military in Iraq says a sustained series of explosions lasting several hours was part of its anti-insurgent operation in and around Baghdad.
• Iraq: Violence Continues, At Least Five Dead RFE/RL 24 Dec 2003 -- More violence is reported today from the Kurdish part of Iraq and the capital Baghdad.

• AFGHANISTAN VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- The building of this road, the completion of the first layer of asphalt on this road, "is" the headline of the reconstruction effort. It is the single biggest and most visible manifestation of our reconstruction effort. However, it's only the headline. When you go down into it, and you see the clinics and the schools and the wells that are being dug, the people whose lives are actually being changed, that's the real reconstruction. And that's the important thing for the Government of Afghanistan to be able to show to its people, that it is providing, through the international community, these services.
• USAID's Natsios Hails Opening of Rebuilt Afghan Highway Washington File 24 Dec 2003 -- "Afghanistan is quite unlike the place I first visited nearly two years ago, just after U.S. troops with Afghan and British allies defeated the Taliban and the al Qaeda terrorists who'd hijacked a proud and ancient people. Back then, President Bush gave us the challenge of completing by end-2003 the rebuilding of the country's most vital road, linking its two biggest cities."
• AFGHANISTAN KIDNAPPING VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- Two Indian engineers kidnapped in Afghanistan earlier this month are now free, following negotiations by the Afghan government. The captors were not fighters from Afghan's former Taleban regime, as previously believed.
• PAKISTAN FOREIGN JOURNALISTS VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- Pakistan has arrested two French journalists for allegedly violating their visa restrictions. A Pakistani journalist assisting them is also in custody on unspecified charges. The case has sparked controversy, not just over press freedom in Pakistan, but also over claims that the two foreign reporters were victims of a hoax.

Other Conflicts

• Annan welcomes reconciliation agreement in the Comoros UN News Centre 24 Dec 2003 -- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today welcomed the signing of an agreement between the president of the Comoros Union and three autonomous islands in the Indian Ocean nation, which has been plagued by secessionist disputes recently.
• MIDDLE EAST: SHARON'S 'UNILATERAL' PLAN A 'DANGEROUS DISTRACTION' US Dept. of State IIP, Foreign media Reaction 24 Dec 2003
• ISRAEL / PALESTINIANS VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- Israeli forces have pulled out of a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip following two days of violent clashes with armed militants that left nine Palestinians dead. The Israeli army says the operation succeeded in uncovering at least one of a network of secret tunnels used to smuggle weapons and explosives from Egypt into Gaza.

Defense Policy / Programs

• Sea Shadow Premier Test Platform for Stealth Navy Newsstand 24 Dec 2003-- In a rusty hulk of a barge beside dry dock on Naval Base San Diego's Mole Pier, the source of much of the Navy's sophisticated ship stealth technology waits for its next wave of classified experiments.
• DoD Budget Reforms Aid Relationships With Private Sector AFPS 24 Dec 2003 -- Transformation of DoD budgetary practices during the past few years is having a rippling effect, reaching far outside the Pentagon and positively influencing how private industry views working with the Defense Department.
• State's Armitage Attributes Positive Developments to Steadfast Policies Washington File 24 Dec 2003 -- Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage dismissed the idea that recent actions on the part of Libya, Syria and Iran were a reaction to the capture of Saddam Hussein but asserted that they are the long-term fruit of persistent policies aimed at bringing these nations into the international mainstream.

News Reports

• RUSSIA / GEORGIA VOA 24 Dec 2003 -- Georgia's interim President Nino Burjanadze has urged Russia to play a more constructive role in its relations with Georgia. Bill Gasperini reports Ms. Burjanadze is in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials.