COLOMBO: Sri Lankan military forces have repeatedly shelled hospitals in the northern Vanni region during fighting with rebels, Human Rights Watch said.The organization said the military commanders responsible for ordering the aerial and artillery attacks could be prosecuted for war crimes.In a statement, Human Rights Watch said it has knowledge of at least 30 attacks on permanent and makeshift hospitals in the combat area since December 2008. One of the deadliest took place May 2, HRW said, when artillery shells struck Mullaivaikal hospital in the government-declared "no-fire zone," killing 68 people and wounding 87."Hospitals are supposed to be sanctuaries from shelling, not targets," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "While doctors and nurses struggle to save lives in overcrowded and under equipped facilities, Sri Lankan army attacks have hit one hospital after another."Human Rights Watch has criticized both the Sri Lankan armed forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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