While the Burmese regime still touts an official count of 10 dead in five days of repression, the UK's Daily Mail reports Oct. 2 claims of a "a former intelligence officer in Burma's ruling junta that thousands of protesters have been killed and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle." The official, whose rank or title are not given, is named as Hla Win, and is said to have defected when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He told the Daily Mail: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand." A more cautious report in The Scotsman cites the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) saying the death toll stands at a minimum of 138. DVB's Aye Chan Naing also said 6,000 people have been detained, including about 2,400 monks.

For all the opprobrium being directed at China over its support for the repressive Burma regime, the US corporate presence is going unexamined. As we recently noted, the new Burma sanctions announced by Bush mean no more than a visa ban on some members of the junta, and the freezing of assets of some figures linked to the regime. (DPA, Sept. 24) None of the US sanctions enacted since the bloody junta took power in 1988 have interfered with Unocal's operations in Burma—which continue to this day.

A suicide bomber in burqa killed 13 people at a police checkpoint Oct. 1 at Bannu in northwest Pakistan on the Afghan border. (AGI, Oct. 1) The following day, a suicide bomber killed 12 Afghan police on a bus in Kabul—the second such attack in the capital in four days. Twenty-eight soldiers and two civilians were killed in a similar attack on a bus on Sept. 29. (Reuters, Oct. 2)

Twelve Nigerian troops were killed in a Sept. 30 attack on an African Union base at Haskanita, Darfur, the deadliest since AU forces were deployed in 2004. Thirty vehicles overran the base, with fifty troops still missing and seven seriously wounded. A spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) condemned the attack, but admitted it was led by breakaway commanders from his own movement, in conjunction with breakaway rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). "There is a war going on between the rebels and the government, and the AU is crunched in the middle," a senior AU officer said.

A Sept. 29 AP story given prominent placement in the New York Times, "Nervous Gulf Hears Calmer Tones on Iran," notes that CentCom chief Adm. William Fallon, on a tour of the Persian Gulf states, is reassuring regional leaders that a war with Iran is not in the offing. "This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful," Fallon said in Sept. 23 interview with Al-Jazeera TV. "I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try and to do our utmost to create different conditions." The Times quoted some talking heads from the "pragmatist" wing of the power elite who were encouraged by Fallon's statement. "It's all about trying to contain Iran without turning this into a war," said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington.

Iraq's bitterly divided political leadership came together Sept. 30 to denounce a non-binding US Senate resolution approved last week that endorses the decentralization of Iraq through the establishment of semi-autonomous regions. That same day, the US Embassy in Baghdad issued a statement of its own criticizing the resolution, which advocates a "federal system" with a weak central government and strong Sunni Arab, Shi'ite and Kurdish regions. "The Congress adopted this proposal based on an incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of the history, present and future of Iraq," said Izzat al-Shahbandar, a member of ex-prime minister Ayad Allawi's parliament bloc. "It represents a dangerous precedent to establishing the nature of the relationship between Iraq and the USA, and shows the Congress as if it were planning for a long-term occupation by their country’s troops." The statement was also signed by Iraq's leading Shi'ite parties and the main Sunni Arab bloc. The US Embassy's highly unusual statement said the resolution would seriously harm Iraq's future stability.

The Turkish government signed an agreement with Iraq Sept. 28 to cooperate in fighting guerillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who are launching attacks on Turkey from Iraqi territory. That same day, the PKK attacked a military post in Turkey's Hakkari province, leaving two guerillas dead in the ensuing battle. The following day, at least 12 pro-government village militiamen and civilians were killed when their minibus was ambushed by PKK fighters in neighboring Sirnak province. (VOA, Press TV, Iran, Sept. 30)

At least seven young men were killed in an apparent US helicopter attack on an outdoor Ramadan gathering in the Baghdad Shi'ite suburb of Abu Dshir late Sept. 27. Witnesses say the men were playing a traditional Ramadan game called mihaidis, in which teams try to find a hidden ring, when the helicopters appeared, briefly hovered over the crowd—and then began firing machine-gun blasts and rockets. Maj. Brad Leighton, identified by the New York Times as "a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad," responded with the following sensitive statement: