| Army: 5 of 6 killed in Afghan crash based in Kan. Posted: 19 Dec 2013 03:02 PM PST  TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Five U.S. soldiers based at Fort Riley, Kan., and one based in Europe were killed in a helicopter crash this week in southern Afghanistan, Army officials said Thursday.
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| Two Muslim converts found guilty of murdering British soldier Posted: 19 Dec 2013 02:34 PM PST  By Costas Pitas and Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Two British Muslim converts were found guilty of murder on Thursday after hacking a soldier to death in broad daylight on a London street in a gruesome killing that horrified the nation. The murder, its impact magnified by video footage showing the culprits with blood soaked hands explaining their actions, provoked a rise in hate crimes against Muslims in Britain, anti-Islamist street protests and government promises of tougher action on radical Islamist preachers. British spy chiefs are facing questions over whether they could have prevented the attack on Drummer Lee Rigby, charges that echo previous criticisms of the security services. A jury at London's Old Bailey criminal court took just over 90 minutes to unanimously find Michael Adebolajo, 29, and Michael Adebowale, 22, guilty of murdering Rigby, 25, an Afghan war veteran, near an army barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, on May 22.
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| Baucus to China? The politics of Senate control Posted: 19 Dec 2013 02:17 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — With control of the Senate at stake in next year's elections, President Barack Obama's decision to name retiring Democratic Sen. Max Baucus as ambassador to China sets off a chain reaction that could give the White House and Democrats an edge in preventing Republicans from gaining a Senate majority.
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| Iraq suffers disastrous year with key mediator absent Posted: 19 Dec 2013 01:58 PM PST  With Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Germany for treatment, the country has been without a key mediator during a disastrous year of political conflict and surging violence. Talabani, a veteran Kurdish leader who is now 80, left Iraq for treatment on December 20 last year after suffering a stroke two days before, and has yet to return. His skills as a mediator, who has sought to bring together feuding politicians, Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Kurdish, during the repeated political crises that have plagued Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003, have been sorely missed in his absence. "Talabani's absence affected the political elite and relations between them in a major way, as he was able to adjust the political game and prevent things from getting out of control," said Ihsan al-Shammari, a political science professor at Baghdad University.
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| Suicide bombers kill 36 Shi'ite pilgrims in Iraq: police Posted: 19 Dec 2013 01:47 PM PST  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suicide bombings in Iraq killed at least 36 people on Thursday in attacks targeting Shi'ite pilgrims ahead of a major holy day next week, police said. Two years after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, violence is at its highest level since 2006-7, when strife between Sunnis and Shi'ites killed tens of thousands of people. The first major attack of the day came when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a funeral tent, killing at least 16 Shi'ite pilgrims and wounding 31 in southern Baghdad's mainly Sunni neighborhood of Doura, police sources said. ...
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| NSA reforms further Obama's reshaping of war on terror Posted: 19 Dec 2013 01:44 PM PST  Washington (AFP) - Slowly, America's security and intelligence super state is being refashioned -- more than a decade since it emerged from the wreckage of the September 11 attacks.
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| Russia blocks UN condemnation of Syria government Posted: 19 Dec 2013 01:17 PM PST  Russia on Friday blocked a US-drafted UN Security Council statement condemning the Syrian government's increasing military offensive on Aleppo, diplomats said. The move heightened diplomatic tensions ahead of a key Russia-US-UN meeting in Geneva on Friday on organizing an international Syria peace conference. Russian diplomats refused to allow any mention in the statement of President Bashar al-Assad's tactics, diplomats said. In the face of the obstacles, the United States decided to withdraw the draft which needs the approval of all 15 Security Council members to be released.
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| Bell Helicopter sees new aircraft matching Asia pivot Posted: 19 Dec 2013 12:14 PM PST  By Andrea Shalal-Esa FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - The tilt-rotor aircraft that Textron Inc's Bell Helicopter is designing for a U.S. Army competition would help troops travel longer distances as the military shifts focus to the Asia-Pacific region, a company official said. Bell is trying to capitalize on its experience building the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor plane together with Boeing Co as it designs a lighter, cheaper and less complex aircraft, the V-280 Valor, that could eventually translate into billions of dollars of orders for the winner of the Army competition. "We're leveraging all those lessons learned and bringing them forward to revolutionize how the Army conducts operations in the future," Keith Flail, a former Army officer and program director for Bell's "Future Vertical Lift" efforts, told Reuters in an interview. "The technology we're looking at here is to reduce weight and to reduce cost and to reduce complexity." Tilt-rotor aircraft take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a plane.
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| Secret detentions fuel Syrian 'campaign of terror': U.N. Posted: 19 Dec 2013 12:02 PM PST  By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian activists and other citizens have vanished into secret detention as part of a "widespread campaign of terror against the civilian population" and a tactic of war by the Damascus government, U.N. investigators said on Thursday. The state-run practice of enforced disappearances in Syria - abductions that are officially denied - is systematic enough to amount to a crime against humanity, they said in a report. ...
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| UN finds systematic disappearances in Syria Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:24 AM PST  GENEVA (AP) — A panel of U.N. investigators said Thursday it believes the Syrian government is committing a crime against humanity by making people systematically vanish, and that rebels have also recently begun making their opponents disappear.
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| Murray Retreats from Military Pension Cuts Amid Uproar Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:02 AM PST  We may be seeing the first crack in the bipartisan budget deal that passed the House and Senate this week. Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) appears to be backing away from a controversial provision that would reduce military pension benefits for some retirees amid a tidal wave of opposition from Senate GOP defense hawks and military organizations. The COLA reduction would last until military retirees reach age 62, at which time they would collect the full cost-of-living increases. Murray, the first woman to serve as chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee, has a strong interest in how the government treats its veterans.
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| Who'll be the Democrats' 'anti-Hillary' in 2016? Posted: 19 Dec 2013 11:01 AM PST It's pretty obvious that Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2016. He says Mrs. Clinton remains the heavy favorite to win the Democratic nomination, but that there's lots of lingering resentment within the party toward her husband, who pushed the party to the right during his presidency, and toward her own vote for the Iraq war as a senator in 2002. |
| Iran and Russia helping Syrian aid effort: European officials Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:55 AM PST  By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran and Russia have used their influence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government to get visas for U.N. aid workers and improve access for convoys in Syria, but much remains to be done, senior European officials told Reuters on Thursday. U.S. officials were more cautious, saying that "all voices" taking part in secretive U.N. talks aimed at bringing food and medical supplies to civilians in out-of-reach areas are critical. There was limited progress in recent weeks, they said. U.N. ...
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| Brahimi urges release of Syrian women's rights activists Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:52 AM PST  UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Thursday demanded the release of leading Syrian women's rights campaigner Razan Zeitouneh and three fellow activists, abducted last week by unknown kidnappers. "We have all got to demand that they be released," Brahimi told activists from Syria and other countries as well as diplomats at a meeting at the UN's Geneva offices. Zeitouneh was among the 2011 winners of the European Parliament's top human rights prize for their role in the Arab Spring. She, her husband Wael Hamada, and fellow campaigners Samira Khalil and Nazem al-Hamadi were seized on December 10 by unknown attackers who raided the offices of a group documenting human rights abuses.
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| Syria disappearances a crime against humanity Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:43 AM PST  Syrian government forces are waging a systematic campaign of enforced disappearances to terrorise the population, amounting to a crime against humanity, a UN-mandated probe said Thursday. "Enforced disappearances are perpetrated as part of a widespread campaign of terror against the civilian population," the Independent International Commission of Inquiry said in a report. "There are reasonable grounds to believe that enforced disappearances were committed by government forces as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, and therefore amount to a crime against humanity," it added.
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| Perils, Positives of Teaching in the Middle East Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:15 AM PST  Americans were saddened this month to hear that Ronnie Smith, a U.S. citizen teaching at The International School in Benghazi, was gunned down while jogging, a little more than a year after the U.S. Consulate in Libya was attacked, leading to the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on his security detail.
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| Syria militants go after opposition activists Posted: 19 Dec 2013 10:13 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — Shortly after the revolt against President Bashar Assad erupted in March 2011, Imad al-Souri quit his computer job to help the protests. He uploaded online videos of the marches and sneaked banned loudspeakers to demonstrators to amplify their voices calling for Assad's downfall.
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| Suicide bombers hit Shiites as Iraq unrest kills 41 Posted: 19 Dec 2013 08:53 AM PST  Three suicide bombers detonated explosives belts among Shiite pilgrims in Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 36 people, while militants shot dead a family of five, officials said. The deadliest attack hit the Dura area of south Baghdad, where a bomber targeted pilgrims at a tent where they are served food and drinks on their way to the shrine city of Karbala, killing at least 20 people and wounding at least 40. Among those killed in the blast was Muhanad Mohammed, a journalist who had worked for both foreign and Iraqi media, one of his sons told AFP. Two more bombers targeted pilgrims in areas south of Baghdad -- one in Yusifiyah, killing eight people and wounding at least 32, and another in Latifiyah, killing at least eight people and wounding at least 18.
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| Attacks on Shiite pilgrims, others kill 36 in Iraq Posted: 19 Dec 2013 08:22 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Suicide bombings targeting Shiite pilgrims in and around the Iraqi capital and other violence across the country killed 36 people and wounded dozens others Thursday, officials said.
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| Insight - A London jihadist's Kenyan connection Posted: 19 Dec 2013 07:53 AM PST  By Michael Holden, Costas Pitas and Drazen Jorgic LONDON/MOMBASA (Reuters) - Like many teenage boys growing up in football-obsessed Britain, Michael Adebolajo enjoyed kicking a ball around the school yard. Those who knew him then say he was just a regular lad: not the next David Beckham, nor bottom of the class. On Thursday Adebolajo, a 29-year-old convert to Islam, and a second man, 22-year-old Michael Adebowale, were convicted of murdering off-duty soldier Lee Rigby in daylight on a street in Woolwich, southeast London, in May. Their guilt had hardly been in doubt. One of them happens to be British military and, unfortunately, the war continues to this day." Adebolajo, a father of six, described in a police interview played to the court how he hacked at the soldier's neck after he and Adebowale ran the soldier over in their car.
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| Iraq executes seven on 'terrorism' charges Posted: 19 Dec 2013 07:52 AM PST  Iraq has executed seven people over the past two days convicted on terrorism charges, the justice minister said on Thursday. The seven "were found guilty under Article IV of the anti-terrorism law," Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari said in a statement, adding that all seven were Iraqi nationals. Iraq has executed nearly 170 people this year who were convicted of terrorism charges, but the rulings have had no discernable impact on the unrest gripping the country. Violence in Iraq has surged this year to levels not seen since 2008, when it was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict.
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| UK spies told to ignore U.S. detainee abuse after 9/11 - inquiry Posted: 19 Dec 2013 07:49 AM PST  By Peter Griffiths LONDON (Reuters) - British intelligence officers in Afghanistan knew about the mistreatment of suspected militants by the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks, but were told not to intervene for fear of offending Washington, an inquiry found on Thursday. In a series of episodes which the government said had damaged Britain's international reputation, the report also found that British spies had been involved in the U.S. practice of "rendition", in which captured militants were transferred without legal process to third countries. "Documents indicate that in some instances UK intelligence officers were aware of inappropriate interrogation techniques," the report said. "(The) government or its agencies may have become inappropriately involved in some cases of rendition." Prime Minister David Cameron set up the inquiry in 2010 to examine if British agents worked with foreign security services, including from the United States, who stand accused of abusing detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
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| Qaeda Syria chief 'rejects any results from peace talks' Posted: 19 Dec 2013 07:37 AM PST  Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria will not accept any results that come from peace talks next month to end the civil war, its chief said in an Al-Jazeera television interview to be aired Thursday. "We will not recognise any results that come out of the Geneva 2 conference," Al-Jazeera's website quoted Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, the head of Al-Nusra Front, as saying. In an apparent reference to the opposition Syrian National Coalition, he said "those taking part in the conference do not represent the people who sacrificed. The man whose group Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri named as the official branch of the network in Syria dismissed opposition representatives slated to attend as those who "have no presence on the ground."
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| Five Best Thursday Columns Posted: 19 Dec 2013 06:56 AM PST  Michael Crowley at Time on NSA reform and the war on terror. "If the NSA's wings are clipped, it will be another step in America's steady march away from its post-2001 wartime footing, one that has accelerated dramatically, if quietly, in Obama's second term," Crowley argues. This week's presidential panel on NSA reform suggests that Obama is pulling back on the war on terror. And despite growing al-Qaeda activity in Syria and Iraq, Obama refuses to intervene in either place," Crowley writes. The Washington Post's political writer Greg Sargent tweets, "Very good @CrowleyTIME piece on larger political context pushing Obama towards NSA reform."
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| Attacks on Shiite pilgrims, others kill 29 in Iraq Posted: 19 Dec 2013 06:55 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Suicide bombings targeting Shiite pilgrims around Iraq's capital on their way to a holy city and other violence across the country killed 29 people Thursday, officials said. |
| Secret detention part of Syria 'campaign of terror:' U.N. Posted: 19 Dec 2013 05:39 AM PST By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian activists and other citizens have vanished into secret detention as part of a "widespread campaign of terror against the civilian population" by the Damascus government, U.N. investigators said on Thursday. The state-run practice of enforced disappearances in Syria - abductions that are officially denied - is systematic enough to amount to a crime of humanity, they said in a report. Some armed groups in northern Syria, especially the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have also abducted people into incommunicado detention and denied their captivity, tantamount to the crime of enforced disappearances, it said. In a separate report, London-based Amnesty International said ISIL was perpetrating "a shocking catalogue of abuses" in secret jails across northern Syria, including torture, flogging and killings after summary trials. |
| Attacks on Shiite pilgrims, others kill 21 in Iraq Posted: 19 Dec 2013 03:42 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bombing targeting Shiite pilgrims in Iraq's capital on their way to a holy city and other violence across the country killed 21 people Thursday, officials said. |
| Syrian Kurds demand their own delegation at Geneva talks Posted: 19 Dec 2013 03:39 AM PST  By Erika Solomon BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Kurds are demanding their own delegation separate from both the government and opposition at next month's peace talks in Switzerland aimed at halting the conflict in Syria, Kurdish political leaders said on Thursday. The Kurds say they need independent representation because their demands in negotiations over Syria's future are distinct from those of the government or the opposition Syrian National Coalition that seeks to end President Bashar al-Assad's rule. They do not recognize the rights of Kurds to live on their land with recognition of their basic rights, including the right to administer their own region," said Abdelsalam Ahmed, a leading figure in the Democratic Union Party (PYD). The push for a more autonomous role for Kurds in Syria has unnerved regional powers such as neighboring Turkey, already dealing with such demands among its own Kurdish population.
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| Attacks on Shiite pilgrims, others kill 16 in Iraq Posted: 19 Dec 2013 03:21 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bombing targeting Shiite pilgrims in Iraq's capital on their way to a holy city and other violence across the country killed 16 people Thursday, officials said. |
| The 'killer robot' olympics Posted: 19 Dec 2013 02:45 AM PST  The world may discover some hard truths this week at the amazing DARPA Robotics Challenge, a competition for the world's next-generation machines.
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| Syria Islamists perpetrate 'shocking abuses:' Amnesty Posted: 19 Dec 2013 02:36 AM PST Islamist militants are perpetrating "a shocking catalogue of abuses" in secret jails across northern Syria, including torture, flogging and killings after summary trials, Amnesty International said on Thursday. It said in a report that the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), one of the most powerful jihadi groups to emerge from Syria's almost three-year-old conflict, is operating seven clandestine prisons in rebel-held areas. "Those abducted and detained by ISIL include children as young as eight who are held together with adults in the same cruel and inhuman conditions," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's Director for the Middle East and North Africa. Human rights abuses have been rife in Syria's civil war, with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad responsible for many of the worst ones, according to the United Nations. |
| Iraqi officials: Suicide attack kills 11 pilgrims Posted: 19 Dec 2013 02:36 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Officials in Iraq say an attack by a suicide bomber in Baghdad has killed 11 Shiite pilgrims who were on their way to a holy city. |
| Amnesty accuses al-Qaida group in Syria of torture Posted: 19 Dec 2013 02:31 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — A leading international watchdog on Thursday accused an al-Qaida-linked rebel group that controls large parts of northern Syria of running secret prisons in which torture and summary killings are common.
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| Obama looks to Baucus to serve as China ambassador Posted: 19 Dec 2013 12:50 AM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is looking to the Senate again to fill a top diplomatic post, with Democratic officials saying he intends to nominate six-term Sen. Max Baucus of Montana to be the next U.S. ambassador to China.
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| Schweitzer says he can connect with Iowa voters Posted: 18 Dec 2013 07:16 PM PST  ALTOONA, Iowa (AP) — Former Democratic Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer isn't saying whether he'll run for president in 2016. But he sought to connect with Iowa voters Wednesday night with a speech that touched on his rural roots, passion for education and his opposition to the Iraq War.
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| Budget deal cuts benefits to some vets: Heartless or painless? Posted: 18 Dec 2013 04:57 PM PST On Wednesday, as expected, the Senate passed the bipartisan budget deal unveiled last week, 64 to 36. Instead, several lawmakers nearly resorted to pistols drawn at 20 paces over a provision in the bipartisan budget deal that reduces military retirement benefits by $6 billion over 10 years. To the lawmakers who crafted the deal, Rep. Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin and Sen. Patty Murray (D) of Washington, it seemed like a fairly painless cut. The budget deal, passed overwhelmingly by the House last week, reduces cost-of-living adjustments for these younger retirees by 1 percent. |
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