Saturday, November 14, 2009 MOSCOW: One person has died and 35 others are missing after a series of blasts tore through an arms depot in western Russia Friday, local news agencies reported.A fire at a defence ministry arsenal in Ulyanovsk, a city on the banks of the Volga River, caused the blasts that shattered windows of nearby homes. Sergei Morozov, the governor of Ulyanovsk region, said about 3,000 people had been evacuated from the surrounding area. The depot reportedly stocked conventional munitions.
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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