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Please pray for a Lance Corporal stationed in Afghanistan. He stepped on an IED today. The email I just now received is that he is "on the bird and is stable." Thank you for holding him before Our Father's throne in this fight against evil.

SNIPPET: "ZAMBOANGA CITY (2nd update, 1:56 p.m.) -- A powerful blast killed at least 3 people and wounded 27 others in a budget hotel packed with wedding guests in the southern Philippines, officials said Monday. The explosion, suspected to have been caused by a bomb, ignited a fire that gutted the two-story Atilano Pension House in downtown Zamboanga city late Sunday." SNIPPET: "Zamboanga city, a predominantly Christian trading hub 540 miles (860 kilometers) south of Manila, is located in a volatile region long troubled by a decades-long Muslim insurgency, extortion gangs and kidnap for ransom syndicates."

10 October 2011 Afghanistan The choice is yours. If blood and guts are too much, the video at the end of this dispatch is not for you. Do not click the button if your stomach is too weak for war. Unless you are a paramedic or work in a trauma center, THE VIDEO IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

SNIPPET: "A seventh man, aged 20, was arrested on Thursday and continues to be questioned." SNIPPET: "Irfan Nasser, 30, from Sparkhill, and Irfan Khalid, 26, from Sparkbrook, are accused of travelling to Pakistan for terrorism training, including bomb making, and weapons and poison making; as well making a martyrdom video and planning a bombing campaign. Ashik Ali, 26, from Balsall Heath, and Rahi Ahmed, 25, from Moseley, face charges related to planning a bombing campaign in the UK, including constructing a home-made explosive device for terrorist acts and stating an intention to be suicide bombers. Two other suspects - Bahader...

For soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most dangerous threat comes not in the form of a bullet, but a bomb. According to NATO, improvised explosive devices (IEDs for short) account for over half of all deaths among coalition soldiers. Now, researchers have developed an advanced new bomb detection technique that uses lasers no more powerful than your typical presentation pointer to detect and identify bombs like IEDs from tens, if not hundreds, of feet away. The technology was developed by a team of researchers at Michigan State University led by chemist Marcos Dantus. "The laser and the method we've...

In this clip Rod, a high-threat IED disposal operator, and his team deal with a device that has been discovered by some of the searchers. From a new BBC documentary telling the story of the counter-IED team based in Helmand, includes headcam footage filmed by both the "searchers", who find the devices, and by the bomb disposal operators themselves.

Mail it, he said. No, the Army said. We're coming out. So last weekend, the 82nd Airborne Division sent a colonel and his entourage from Fort Bragg, N.C., to find Matt Blain. And give him something rare. "In my 27 years in uniform service, this is the first time I've seen this presentation," 4th Brigade Combat Team Col. Brian Mennes says. "That's how significant it is." With that, the 82nd Airborne colonel explains his visit to a houseful of Blain's family and friends.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Police in southern California have arrested 60 people and broken up an Iraqi criminal ring accused of selling drugs, machine guns and improvised bombs out of an immigrant social club, authorities said on Thursday. The swoop by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and local police targeted a network operating out of El Cajon, which is near San Diego and close to the border with Mexico.

Magen David Adom (MDA) has declared a mass casualty event and the State of Israel has moved to its highest security alert nationwide as hospitals report that five are dead following terror attacks that struck the country's southern region midday Thursday.

Oklahoma bomb teams removed what is believed to be an Improvised Explosive Device from a gas line in Okfuskee, a small town about 30 miles east of Oklahoma City, authorities said.

Australian police say an elaborate hoax in which a fake bomb was attached to a teenager was an attempt at extortion. Madeleine Pulver, 18, was at home in Sydney when an intruder apparently entered and placed a suspected explosive device round her neck. Police took 10 hours to remove the device, evacuating nearby streets in the wealthy suburb of Mosman. They said the intruder left behind a note attached to the device that confirmed the motive was extortion. The offender had had previous contact with Ms Pulver and was wearing some sort of disguise, they said. No prime suspect New...

A giant spinning metal rototiller shreds bombs without flinching. The Digger D-3 is the most recent addition to my own personal list of robots not to stand in front of. It's a mine-clearing robot, and not the sort of mine-clearing robot that pokes around with a metal detector. Instead, it's the sort of mine-clearing robot that just sucks it up and tells the landmines to bring it. At the front of the D-3 is a giant spinning metal pulverizer-thing-of-death, which has tungsten hammers that beat down almost a foot into the ground, turning everything they touch into mulch. This includes...

BAGHDAD -- A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers Thursday outside the main American military base in Baghdad in what U.S. officials said appeared to be another attack by Shiite militias hoping to drive U.S. troops out of Iraq. The attack follows the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq in two years. Fifteen U.S. soldiers died in June, nearly all in attacks by Shiite militias. ----- Thursday's bomb, which was detonated near a checkpoint outside Victory Base Camp, was a powerful armor-piercing explosive known as an EFP, according to two military officials with knowledge of the attack. EFPs typically...

Improvised rocket assisted munitions made in Tehran, favored by the Iranian trained Shia militias in Iraq, are placed on the back of flatbed trucks. Their target: U.S. military personnel and their bases in Iraq as the remaining U.S. forces prepare to leave the nation by the end of December. Fifteen Americans were killed in June, the deadliest month for U.S. personnel serving in Iraq in more than two years. And some say Iranian influence is showing up more and more in attacks on troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. -video at link also-

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (June 8, 2011) – A local Afghan child reported the location of an improvised explosive device to U.S. Special Operations Forces in the Khakrez district, June 6. Afghan forces were tasked with finding and clearing the IED. They identified one device which contained more than 40 pounds of homemade explosives. “With the recent civilian casualties resulting from insurgent IEDs in the province and the improvements in the flow of information to the Afghan public, it’s not surprising that more and more Afghans are reporting the locations of these IEDs,” said an officer from Special Operations Task Force-South. According...

A young man in my circle of acquaintance was very badly wounded in Afghanistan on Sunday. Apparently there was considerable internal damage in addition to the loss of his legs, and it is unclear whether he can survive the necessary surgery. Will you please agree with me in prayer and lift this Marine and his family up? Thank you.

KABUL — A bomb attack killed four foreign soldiers from NATO's US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, the military said. "Four International Security Assistance Force service members died following an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Afghanistan today," a statement said. ISAF does not give details of the nationalities of dead soldiers or how fatal incidents happen, leaving that to officials from the relevant country. Of the 130,000 international troops in Afghanistan trying to reverse a nearly 10-year Taliban insurgency, 90,000 come from the United States. The deaths bring to 224 the number of international...

KABUL, Afghanistan – A U.S. official says that Seven NATO service members killed in explosion in southern Afghanistan were Americans. NATO said in a statement that all seven died in a roadside bomb explosion Thursday. The coalition did not release further details. Tens of thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan forces have been working for months to rout the Taliban from their strongholds in the south.

SNIPPET: "CHESTER, Pa. (CBS) – Chester police are urging vigilance after they found an improvised explosive device, this afternoon, near Amtrak and Septa railroad tracks and the Commodore Barry Bridge. 

 Police say the device consisted of two bottles with a yellow liquid inside. They say one had a timer and wires attached by duct tape."

On Sunday afternoon, a motorist spotted a suspicious device along U.S. Expressway 77/83 in Brownsville and reported it to police. The device turned out to be an improvised explosive device. The expressway was shut down for about three hours Sunday, as the bomb squad “rendered the device safe," Brownsville police spokesman Eddie Garcia said. It is still unknown exactly how the explosive device ended up on the roadway, but IEDs are sometimes used by the drug cartels in their ongoing war. Of course, drug gangs are battling one another just across the border in Matamoros. According to an April 13th...