| Militants shoot down Iraqi helicopter and occupy northern town Posted: 22 Feb 2014 01:47 PM PST  By Suadad al-Salhy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants shot down a helicopter on Saturday and briefly occupied a town, in an escalating turf war with Iraq's government that has killed at least 25 people in two days, police said. All four crew members were killed when their helicopter was downed during a reconnaissance flight over the town of Karma in Iraq's western province of Anbar, where the army is engaged in a standoff with anti-government fighters. Sunni Islamist insurgents have been gaining ground in Iraq over the past year and in recent weeks overran several towns, raising the stakes in a conflict against the Shi'ite-led government that made last year the deadliest since sectarian civil strife began to abate in 2008. Late on Friday, dozens of militants in SUVs drove into the small town of al-Sainiyah, near Baiji, some 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, after bombing the local police headquarters, and fought troops for several hours overnight, witnesses said.
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| A Brief History of Girl Scout Cookies and Medical Marijuana Posted: 22 Feb 2014 12:22 PM PST  The internet exploded after an industrious Girl Scout sold 117 boxes of cookies in just two hours outside of a medical marijuana clinic in San Francisco earlier this week. Accompanied by her mom, 13-year-old Girl Scout Danielle Lei went to The Green Cross on President's Day and tallied almost 40 more boxes than she would sell outside a Safeway the following day. Girl Scout selling cookies outside medical #marijuana clinic in SF: http://t.co/5RS4eqvsfK — Elissa Goldstein (@Book_Moth) February 21, 2014 But the love between the Girl Scouts and medical marijuana isn't limited to one cookie sales bonanza.
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| Taliban condemn violence in C. African Republic Posted: 22 Feb 2014 12:16 PM PST KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan Taliban on Saturday called for an end to violence against Muslims in the Central African Republic, making a rare statement on conflicts outside their region that was soon echoed by al-Qaida's North Africa branch. |
| U.S. weapons makers, military bet on innovation as funds shrivel Posted: 22 Feb 2014 10:56 AM PST By Andrea Shalal HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - Building missiles used to be back-breaking, strenuous work, and dangerous too, given the high level of explosives involved. But U.S. weapons maker Raytheon Co has revolutionized that process at a sprawling, classified facility in Huntsville, Alabama, where automated transporters ferry missile parts to gleaming assembly stations, and even tuck themselves away for charging when their batteries run low. The $75 million facility at the U.S. military's Redstone Arsenal reflects a new spirit of innovation pulsing through the U.S. defense industry, which is scrambling to maintain revenues despite declining military budgets after the end of the war in Iraq and the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan. "This is what we call the 'factory of the future'," said Randy Stevenson, director of Raytheon's Weapon Integration Center. |
| Syria regime warplanes raid rebel stronghold Posted: 22 Feb 2014 09:21 AM PST  Syria's air force staged more air raids Saturday on the key rebel-held bastion of Yabrud north of Damascus, as clashes also raged on the capital's outskirts, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that in the northeast, Kurdish fighters seized the town of Tal Barak from jihadists. Regime forces launched a new wave of aerial and tank bombardment in and around Yabrud, the main town in the Qalamun mountain range and with a mixed Muslim and Christian population, two weeks into a campaign aimed at seizing it from rebels. The Britain-based Observatory said Saturday's attacks targeted several mountainous areas around Yabrud as well as the town itself, which was once home to some 50,000 people.
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| Syrian troops advance near Golan Heights city Posted: 22 Feb 2014 09:11 AM PST  BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government forces captured Saturday two rebel-held areas on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after days of intense fighting near a decades-old cease-fire line between Syria and Israel, state TV said.
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| Iraq announces 72-hour truce in militant-held Fallujah Posted: 22 Feb 2014 08:50 AM PST  Iraq's defence ministry on Saturday announced a 72-hour halt to military operations in the militant-held city of Fallujah, but new violence showed the weeks-long crisis remains far from resolved. The announcement raises the possibility of negotiations to end the crisis, during which gunmen have also seized parts of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, highlighting both the reach of militants and the weakness of security forces. While the loss of control in the two Anbar cities has posed a major challenge for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, a successful resolution to the crisis could give the premier a boost ahead of parliamentary polls scheduled for April.
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| Syrian Kurds take town from Islamists: watchdog Posted: 22 Feb 2014 08:05 AM PST  By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Kurdish group captured a town in Syria from Islamists on Saturday in a battle in which at least 28 fighters were killed, most of them Islamists, a monitoring group reported If the Kurds can keep hold of Tal Brak, on a highway between the cities of Hassaka and Qamishli, it would mark a significant advance in their quest for wider control in the northeast. Online Islamist activists said fighting was still going on, but the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurdish People's Protection Units had taken the town. The People's Protection Units said in a statement they had taken Tal Brak after a midnight assault on fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other militants. The Syrian Observatory, an opposition-affiliated watchdog, said at least 25 Islamists had been killed.
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| World War I root of Mideast conflict, Armenian genocide Posted: 22 Feb 2014 07:52 AM PST  A century on, World War I casts a haunting shadow far from the trenches of western Europe, having spawned two crises that still strain international relations: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Armenian genocide. When Ottoman Sultan Mehmed V declared "holy war" on Britain, France and Russia on November 24, 1914, his five-century-old empire was already in decline and had lost most of its European territory. The Ottoman army inflicted a brutal defeat on British and French forces on the strategic Gallipoli peninsula during the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, but its war turned into a nightmare on the eastern front against Russia. Defeated by Russia in Armenia and the Caucasus, the Ottomans responded by attacking the Armenian minority in their midst.
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| As Iraq hands out election IDs, unrest rages on Posted: 22 Feb 2014 06:59 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi election officials began handing out new, computerized voter identification cards Saturday across the capital as the country prepares for its first nationwide election since the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
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| Syrian Kurds capture town from Islamic fighters Posted: 22 Feb 2014 06:55 AM PST BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian activists say Kurdish fighters have captured a northeastern town near the Iraqi border after days of combat with members of an al-Qaida breakaway group. |
| Iraq starts building new oil refinery Posted: 22 Feb 2014 06:16 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq has held a ceremony marking the start of construction of a large oil refinery aimed at meeting increasing demand for refined products. |
| Good Reads: From migrant workers, to tai chi at Goldman Sachs, to online surveillance Posted: 22 Feb 2014 05:00 AM PST While the United States is the place with the most international workers, the city with the highest concentration of them is Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where only about 1 in 10 of the residents is Emirati. Author Cynthia Gorney tracks the experience of a Filipino couple, Luis and Teresa Cruz, working in Dubai while two of their children remain outside Manila in the Philippines. |
| Iraqi authorities distribute cards for elections Posted: 22 Feb 2014 04:58 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's election commission said Saturday that it has not yet decided how it will distribute voter ID cards in the embattled western province of Anbar, barely two months before the country's first election since the 2011 withdrawal of the U.S. forces.
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| Militants kill at least 9 troops in eastern Iraq Posted: 22 Feb 2014 03:47 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Officials in Iraq say militants have attacked an army patrol in the country's east, killing at least nine troops. |
| Militant-held Iraqi area 'back in government hands' Posted: 22 Feb 2014 02:46 AM PST  Tikrit (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi security forces have retaken a northern area from militants after more than a week of heavy fighting during which parts of it repeatedly changed hands, an official said Saturday. Militants initially seized parts of Sulaiman Bek on February 13, setting off a cycle of clashes in the area which includes a town and several villages. Dozens of people -- militants, security personnel and civilians -- were killed in the fighting. Sulaiman Bek "has now been completely liberated, and there are no longer any gunmen, just police and soldiers", local official Talib al-Bayati told AFP.
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| Syrians in remote tented settlement feel abandoned Posted: 22 Feb 2014 12:35 AM PST  NORTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan (AP) — Every day at dawn, teenager Sultan Ahmad al-Saleh gets up and starts work, 12 hours in the fields picking vegetables in this remote corner of northwestern Jordan. It's what he's been doing for the past three years, ever since he was 14 years old and his family fled here to escape Syria's civil war.
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| Hagel decides not to pursue top medal for celebrated U.S. Marine hero Posted: 21 Feb 2014 05:14 PM PST  By David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has reviewed the case of a Marine sergeant honored for heroism in Iraq and agreed with two other Pentagon chiefs that the evidence is insufficient to merit the highest military award for valor, the Pentagon said on Friday. Supporters have criticized the department for denying Marine Sergeant Rafael Peralta's nomination for the Medal of Honor for his actions in Fallujah in 2004, when pulled a grenade under his body to shield his comrades from the explosion, even as he was already dying of a fatal head wound. "After extensively familiarizing himself with the history of Sergeant Peralta's nomination, Secretary Hagel determined the totality of the evidence does not meet the 'proof beyond a reasonable doubt' Medal of Honor award standard," the Pentagon said in a statement. While Defense Secretary Robert Gates initially denied the Medal of Honor nomination, he approved Peralta for the Navy Cross, the second-highest military award for valor for members of the Navy and Marine Corps.
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