| Mother of slain Iraqi journalist forgives killer Posted: 23 Dec 2013 12:15 PM PST  The mother of a young Iraqi television presenter who was shot dead in the northern city of Mosul met and forgave her killer, saying he sent her daughter to paradise. During the broadcast, Nuaimi's mother met the man who killed her daughter, telling him that he "sent her as a bride to paradise," and kissed his forehead. Iraqi army Staff Major General Ali al-Fraiji said Nuaimi's killer was among a group that was arrested during an attempted attack on security forces. He was identified by Nuaimi's family and witnesses, Fraiji said.
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| Exclusive: Assad's secret oil lifeline: Iraqi crude from Egypt Posted: 23 Dec 2013 11:54 AM PST  By Julia Payne LONDON (Reuters) - The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad has received substantial imports of Iraqi crude oil from an Egyptian port in the last nine months, shipping and payments documents show, part of an under-the-radar trade that has kept his military running despite Western sanctions. Assad's government has been blacklisted by Western powers for its role in the two-and-a-half year civil war, forcing Damascus to rely on strategic ally Iran - itself the target of Western sanctions over its nuclear program - as its main supplier of crude oil. A Reuters examination based on previously undisclosed commercial documents about Syrian oil purchases shows however that Iran is no longer acting alone. Dozens of shipping and payment documents viewed by Reuters show that millions of barrels of crude delivered to Assad's government on Iranian ships has actually come from Iraq, through Lebanese and Egyptian trading companies.
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| Russia's Kalashnikov, designer of AK-47, dies Posted: 23 Dec 2013 11:28 AM PST  Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the fabled AK-47 automatic rifle which became a weapon of choice for guerrillas and governments the world over, died Monday at age 94. Kalashnikov, though he designed a weapon that became synonymous with killing on a sometimes indiscriminate scale, was seen in the Soviet Union as a national hero and symbol of Moscow's proud military past. He died in Izhevsk, an industrial town 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) east of Moscow, Viktor Chulkov, spokesman for Udmurtia's leader Alexander Volkov, told AFP. Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his "deepest condolences" to the family of the "outstanding" designer, the Kremlin said.
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| AK-47 rifle inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at 94 Posted: 23 Dec 2013 11:25 AM PST  By Dmitry Solovyov MOSCOW (Reuters) - Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russian designer of the AK-47 assault rifle which has killed more people than any other firearm in the world, died on Monday aged 94, officials said. Kalashnikov, who was in his 20s when he created the AK-47, died in his home city of Izhevsk near the Ural Mountains, where his gun is still made, a spokesman for the Udmurtia province's president said on state television. Kalashnikov was fitted with a pacemaker at a Moscow hospital in June and had been in hospital in Izhevsk since November 17, state media reported. Sombre music accompanied tributes that led evening news reports on state TV, and President Vladimir Putin expressed "deep sympathy" for Kalashnikov's loved ones.
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| Attacks across Iraq kill at least 26 people Posted: 23 Dec 2013 10:45 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — A new wave of attacks across Iraq including an assault on a TV station killed at least 26 people on Monday, officials said, as the government pressed on with its offensive to hunt down al-Qaida-linked militants in the country's volatile western desert. |
| At least 20 people killed in attacks across Iraq: police Posted: 23 Dec 2013 09:47 AM PST By Ghazwan Hassan TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - At least 20 people were killed in a spate of attacks across Iraq on Monday that included the seizure by gunmen of a television station, the targeting of Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims and a desert offensive by the army. Two years after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, violence is at its highest levels since the sectarian bloodshed of 2006-7, when tens of thousands of people were killed. Al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants have recently stepped up attacks on Iraqi security forces, civilians and anyone seen as supporting the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. In the northern city of Tikrit, four gunmen wearing explosive vests seized the building of the local government channel Salahuddin after detonating a parked car bomb near the entrance, police sources said. |
| Militants kill five journalists in Iraq TV HQ assault Posted: 23 Dec 2013 08:21 AM PST  Tikrit (Iraq) (AFP) - Suicide bombers assaulted an Iraqi television station headquarters on Monday, killing five journalists, the latest in a series of attacks against the media, police officers said. And the defence ministry announced that Iraqi forces destroyed two militant camps, with officials saying the civil war in neighbouring Syria was driving the violence. The dead from the attack on Salaheddin television in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, were the chief news editor, a copy editor, a producer, a presenter and the archives manager, the police officers said, while five of the channel's employees were wounded. Two of the bombers blew themselves up during the attack, and security forces killed the other two when they stormed the building.
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| Qatar rights advocate hit by U.S. sanctions denies al Qaeda ties Posted: 23 Dec 2013 07:31 AM PST The Qatari head of a Geneva-based human rights organization will contest the sanctions imposed on him by the United States for allegedly financing al Qaeda, he said on Monday. Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi was one of two men listed as global terrorists by the U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday, in a step that puts Qatar, a U.S. ally, in an awkward position. Doha opposes al Qaeda, but supports Islamist groups in Egypt and Syria, much to the ire of its conservative Gulf Arab allies who fear any rise of political Islam could challenge their rule. Nuaymi, who heads the Alkarama human rights organization, "provided money and material support and conveyed communications to al Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen for more than a decade," the Treasury Department website said. |
| Militants kill four Iraqi journalists in TV assault Posted: 23 Dec 2013 06:33 AM PST  Tikrit (Iraq) (AFP) - Four suicide bombers attacked a local television station headquarters north of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least four journalists, police officers said. Two of the bombers blew themselves up, while security forces killed two others when they stormed the building, the officers said. The attack on the TV station came after a December 16 assault by militants on the Tikrit city council headquarters, in which a council member and two police were killed. Iraq has come in for repeated criticism over the lack of media freedom and the number of unsolved killings of journalists.
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| Special Report: Why the Pentagon's accounting fixes end up broken Posted: 23 Dec 2013 06:29 AM PST  (This is the third story in the series "Unaccountable: the high cost of the Pentagon's bad bookkeeping." http://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/) By Scot J. Paltrow ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force had great expectations for the Expeditionary Combat Support System when it launched the project in 2005. This accountants' silver bullet, the Air Force predicted a year later, "will fundamentally revolutionize the way the Air Force provides logistics support." The new computer-based logistics technology would replace 420 obsolete, inefficient and largely incompatible "legacy" systems with a single, unified means of tracking the hardware of warfare. Seven years and $1.03 billion taxpayer dollars later, the Air Force announced in November 2012 that it was killing the project. ECSS had yielded "negligible" value and was "no longer a viable option," the Air Force said.
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| 2013 roundup: Reporters' backstories on the big stories Posted: 23 Dec 2013 06:00 AM PST I'm fortunate to have friends like Farea, to have relationships in which vast cultural differences feel like footnotes. |
| Al-Qaeda Actually Apologized for One of Its Attacks Posted: 23 Dec 2013 05:44 AM PST  The leader of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP), the terrorist group's Yemeni arm, offered a rare apology for attacking a hospital and prayer center during a strike on Yemen's Defense Ministry last week. AQAP commander Qassim al-Raimi said in a video statement that has not been absolutely confirmed, but that the Associated Press writes was released by AQAP's news media branch, that attackers were told not to target the hospital ,but that one made a "mistake," adding, "We told them (militants) to be cautious, not to enter the prayer place or the hospital. We accept full responsibility for what happened in the hospital and will pay blood money for the victims' families... We rid ourselves of what our brother did... We did not order him to do so, and we are not pleased with what he did." The apology, posted online on Saturday, is apparently a response to video footage broadcast on Yemeni television showing al-Qaeda operatives attacking doctors and throwing explosives at patients in the hospital.
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| Attacks across Iraq kill at least 20 people Posted: 23 Dec 2013 05:10 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — A new wave of attacks across Iraq killed at least 20 people and wounded dozens on Monday as the government pressed on with its offensive to hunt down al-Qaida-linked militants in the country's volatile western desert. |
| Analysis: Domestic concerns drive Oman's newly assertive foreign policy Posted: 22 Dec 2013 11:43 PM PST  By Sami Aboudi MUSCAT (Reuters) - Traditionally reticent Oman has become unusually assertive in opposing a Saudi plan for Gulf Arab states to close ranks against Iran, worried that a wider regional confrontation might threaten its own stability. Oman's willingness to incur the displeasure of Saudi Arabia, its most powerful neighbor, reflects both the proximity of Iran and vulnerabilities of its domestic political, economic and religious makeup. The Sultanate sits on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula through which flows 40 percent of the world's seaborne crude oil. Muscat has a history of constructive relations with Tehran, and recently agreed to buy Iranian gas for the next quarter century.
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| Analysis: Even if foreign troops leave Afghanistan, U.S. has some options Posted: 22 Dec 2013 10:13 PM PST  By Missy Ryan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials have warned of the potential for catastrophe if Afghan President Hamid Karzai fails to sign a security pact to permit foreign forces to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Unless a deal is reached to enable a modest U.S. force of perhaps 8,000 to stay in the country, the Taliban might stage a major comeback, al Qaeda might regain safe havens and Afghan forces might find themselves starved of funding, the officials say. The post-2014 U.S. force envisioned would train and assist Afghan soldiers and go after the most dangerous militants. But even if the Obama administration abruptly pulls out its entire force of 43,000 a year from now, it would still retain a handful of limited security options in Afghanistan.
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