Airstrikes likely killed 26 civilians

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. warplane failed to follow all operational rules in a complex battle in Afghanistan last month that killed an estimated 26 civilians and 78 Taliban fighters, the U.S. military concluded in a report released Friday.

The deaths last month raised the stakes in a growing battle for the good will of Afghan civilians, whose allegiance Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said is crucial if the United States is going to win the faltering war in Afghanistan.

"The inability to discern the presence of civilians and assess the potential collateral damage of those strikes is inconsistent with the U.S. government's objective of providing security and safety for the Afghan people," the report prepared by U.S. Central Command said.

Three U.S. airstrikes conducted after dark near the close of the chaotic fight in the western Farah Province probably accounted for the civilian deaths, the report said. It contained only mild criticism of the B-1 bomber crew involved, however, and the nation's top military official has already said there is no reason to punish any U.S. personnel.

The report contains no surprises — U.S. officials had already given rough estimates of the number of deaths — but provides a vivid narrative of a firefight that also killed five Afghan national police officers. Two U.S. personnel and seven Afghan security officers were wounded.

Local Afghan officials have said as many as 140 people were killed.

The report recommends refining the current rules for operations with the potential to kill civilians and ensuring that training matches the rules.

Other recommendations include improving the military's ability to get its side of the story in front of Afghans faster, something commanders say is frustratingly difficult. The U.S. should be "first with the truth," the report said.

The report promised a follow-up in four months on how well new tactical rules are working.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told a Pentagon news conference Thursday that he has seen nothing in the investigation that would call for disciplinary action against the U.S. forces involved.

Mullen added that the complex, seven- to eight-hour fight, which stretched from daylight to dark, revealed gaps in the chain of command and some training shortcomings that military leaders plan to address.

Mullen said he is satisfied that U.S. forces involved in the battle were sufficiently sure of their targets and believed that civilians would not be injured when they fired.

Gates has said the accidental killing of civilians in Afghanistan has become one of the military's greatest strategic problems in a war his commanders have called a stalemate at best.

Gates has also said the thousands of new U.S. troops deploying in Afghanistan can lessen the reliance on airstrikes, which are responsible for most of the civilian deaths at U.S. hands.

He has directed his new general running the war in Afghanistan to find new ways to reduce the number of deaths.



by the associated press

Gen. Stanley McChrystal and United States vows to protect Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan — Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a former top special operations commander, took charge of nearly 90,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Monday, telling them they must protect Afghan civilians from all kinds of violence.

McChrystal takes over the Afghan campaign at a critical moment: violence, troop levels and U.S. military deaths have all hit record highs, and President Hamid Karzai has pressured on U.S. forces to prevent civilian deaths.

McChrystal is expected to take a more unconventional approach to the increasingly violent campaign in Afghanistan, relying on decades of experience with special operators — elite military units such as Navy SEALs and Army’s Delta Force that carry out dangerous and secretive missions.

"The Afghan people are at the center of our mission. ... We must protect them from violence, whatever its nature,” the general told several hundred troops in central Kabul.

President Barack Obama has ordered 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan. There is expected to be about 68,000 U.S. troops in the country by the end of the year.



by the associated press

Palestinians dismiss Israeli new stance

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed a Palestinian state for the first time Sunday, reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions like demilitarization that the Palestinians swiftly rejected.


A week after President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state — a condition amounting to Palestinians giving up the goal of returning to Israel.

The West Bank-based Palestinian government dismissed the proposal as an attempt to determine the outcome of negotiations while maintaining Israeli settlements, refusing compromise over Jerusalem and ignoring the issue of borders. They also said that demilitarization would solidify Israeli control over them.

Netanyahu, in an address seen as his response to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.

"Netanyahu’s speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations,” senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term ‘Palestinian state’ because he qualified it.”

The Palestinians demand all of the West Bank as part of a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war.




by the associated press

War justifies slaying

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A Muslim convert charged with fatally shooting an American soldier at a military recruiting center said Tuesday that he doesn’t consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.

"I do feel I’m not guilty,” Abdulhakim Muhammad told The Associated Press in a call from the Pulaski County jail. "I don’t think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason.”

Pvt. William Andrew Long, 23, of Conway was volunteering at the west Little Rock recruiting office before starting an assignment in South Korea. He was shot dead June 1 outside the building, and a fellow soldier, Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville was wounded.



by the associated press

Militants turning to teens

BAGHDAD — Teenagers armed with grenades and suicide vests are the latest recruits for Sunni insurgents trying to find new ways to outwit heightened security measures and attack American and Iraqi forces, the U.S. military said Saturday.

The use of boys also serves a propaganda purpose — the soldiers face criticism for harming children if they fire back.

Insurgents first turned to women to carry out suicide bombings, causing U.S. and Iraqi troops to step up recruiting and training of female searchers at checkpoints to seek explosives easily hidden under women’s robes.

Now they appear to be using youths and weapons that are easier to hide like grenades as they face checkpoints and convoys aimed at bolstering security gains that have caused the level of violence to plummet nationwide.

"With grenade attacks, insurgents hope to capitalize on reports of civilian injuries blamed on a coalition response to the attack,” Maj. Derrick Cheng said. But "the reality is that the grenade explosion itself causes the majority of civilian casualties.”

The military has said in the past it believes al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgent groups are recruiting children. But Saturday’s statement was the first to provide detailed allegations of teenage suspects in what the military called "a growing trend of children carrying out attacks.”


by the associated press

Children of fallen troops may gain aid new under plan

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats are using an approximately $100 billion war funding bill to give recently expanded GI Bill education benefits to the children of service members who die while on active duty.

The provision, pressed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, would give GI Bill benefits — which were greatly expanded last year — to each child of a service member killed in action or while on active duty, instead of a single family member as permitted under rules.

Spokespeople for both Pelosi and the House Appropriations Committee said the plan would be included in the war funding bill — despite not having passed either House or Senate during initial consideration of the legislation last month. It would cost $164 million over the next decade.

House-Senate negotiators are putting the finishing touches on the war funding measure in hopes of sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature next week.


Political war
The move lobs a political hand grenade at GOP leaders, who are organizing Republican opposition to the war funding bill, which would also provide $5 billion to cover the risk of default on a $100 billion line of credit for the International Monetary Fund.

Republicans opposing the war funding measure over the IMF provision would invite attacks by Democratic political operatives poised to accuse them of opposing help for the children of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They’re playing politics,” said Michael Steele, spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Edwards said: "No one has sacrificed for our country more than the military child who has lost a parent.”


by the associated press

Park fence at WWI memorial

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The group that runs the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City wants to encircle the memorial grounds with fence as part of a security upgrade to protect the monument and National World War I Museum. But some park department officials don’t think it’s a good idea.

"We don’t fence parks,” said Park Commissioner Angie Stackhaus. "I’m vehemently opposed to a fence. It violates (the original) design and it’s just not necessary.”

The Liberty Memorial is a national historic landmark that sits on 47.5 acres of land across from Union Station and is home to the World War I Museum. Memorial officials say a fence would help keep out undesirable activity. They also say the memorial is a potential terrorist target.

That notion gets scoffs from some park officials who say if someone wants to terrorize the monument, a fence isn’t going to prevent that.

Memorial officials want to add the fence, cameras and improved lighting as part of a $1.4 million security project. Sandra Aust, chairwoman of the memorial’s grounds committee, said she doesn’t like fences in general but thinks the city needs to be realistic.

"We have a wonderful asset that we’ve invested more than $100 million in preserving and enhancing,” she said.

"We have a responsibility to look at what we need to do to make sure it is secure and protected.”



by the associated press

Iraqis express security fear

BAGHDAD — Three years ago, the U.S. thinned out its presence in Baghdad and Iraqi forces could not stem the tide of fighting. By the end of June, Iraq’s forces will again be in control of their cities — and many Iraqis wonder if they are up to the task.

Publicly, the U.S. military insists it has full confidence in Iraq’s army and police to cope with challenges after the June 30 deadline for U.S. combat troops to leave Baghdad, Mosul and other cities.

Privately, however, some U.S. and Iraqi officials acknowledge no one can say with certainty whether Iraqis can perform until they assume the responsibility.

Many Iraqis fear that Sunni and Shiite extremists are laying low waiting for the Americans to pull back and won’t wait long to mount a challenge.

"The current bloodshed acts proved that Iraqi forces are not ready yet,” said Haider Abbas, a Shiite teacher in Baghdad.

Although U.S. officials insist Iraqi forces are better, they still face problems with supplies and logistics which limit their ability to operate on their own.

More importantly, many fear the security forces, most notably the police, still are under the influence of political groups and would not enforce the law evenhandedly.

"The U.S. withdrawal will worsen the situation,” said Hamza Mehdi, 29, who owns an auto parts shop. "There are too many unresolved issues.”



by the associated press

U.S. Troops could stay in Iraq 10 years

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday.

Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said the world remains dangerous and unpredictable, and the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars.

He spoke to a dozen journalists and policy analysts from Washington-based think-tanks. He said his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.

Casey’s calculations about force levels are related to his attempt to ease the brutal deployment calendar that he said would "bring the Army to its knees.”

Casey would not specify how many combat units would be split between Iraq and Afghanistan. He said U.S. ground commander Gen. Ray Odierno is leading a study to determine how far U.S. forces could be cut back in Iraq and still be effective.

President Barack Obama plans to bring U.S. combat forces home from Iraq in 2010, and the United States and Iraq have agreed that all American forces would leave by 2012.

The United States currently has about 139,000 troops in Iraq and 52,000 in Afghanistan.

Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war quickly and refocusing U.S. resources on what he called the more important fight in Afghanistan.



by the associated press

Car bomb might have targeted official

BAGHDAD — A car bomb went off Sunday near the governor’s residence in the turbulent northern city of Mosul, killing a policeman and wounding three civilians, according to police officials.

It was not immediately clear whether Atheel al-Nujeifi, governor of Ninevah province, was the target of the bomb.

He was not at his residence in the Dawasa neighborhood at the time of the blast.

The bomb was in a car parked about 100 yards from his home, suggesting it was meant to be detonated when the governor’s convoy drove past.

Earlier Sunday, a gunman killed an off-duty prison officer in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. A police statement said the victim was a 1st lieutenant in his 20s who served at Badoosh prison on the city’s outskirts. The gunman got out of a car, opened fire on the officer and then fled, the statement said.

The statement from the provincial police command did not give a motive for the shooting.


by the associated press

50 die in attack on Sri Lanka war zone

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Artillery shells tore through a hospital packed with wounded civilians in Sri Lanka's war zone for a second day Wednesday, killing at least 50 people, setting an ambulance ablaze and forcing the medical staff to huddle in bunkers for safety, doctors said.

Health workers at the makeshift medical facility said they were so overwhelmed by the crush of the wounded and the unrelenting shelling of the area they could do little but give gauze and bandages to the roughly 1,000 patients waiting for treatment.

The strike on the hospital came as the government marched on with its offensive to destroy the reeling Tamil Tiger rebels and end their quarter-decade quest for a separate homeland.

There has been a wave of artillery bombardments across the war zone that began over the weekend and has barely let up in five days, health workers said. The weekend attacks alone may have killed as many as 1,000 people, doctors said.

The government says its troops are not responsible for the shelling and that the military has not fired heavy weapons in the area in weeks.

But Human Rights Watch says satellite images and witness testimony contradict that claim and has accused both sides of using the estimated 50,000 civilians packed into the tiny coastal strip controlled by the rebels as "cannon fodder."

The shelling was so intense Wednesday that a Red Cross ferry waiting off the coast to deliver food aid and evacuate the wounded had to turn back for a second day, the agency said.

Two artillery shells hit the medical facility about 1 p.m., slamming into an administrative office and a ward filled with patients already wounded by previous shell attacks, Dr. V. Shanmugarajah told The Associated Press by telephone.

Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah, the top health official in the war zone, said the attack killed at least 50 people, including patients, relatives and a health aide, and wounded about 60 others.

Heavy shelling of the war zone continued throughout the day, he said.

"We are unable to treat the people properly because a lot of aides have fled the hospital. We go into bunkers when there is shelling and try to treat them as much as we can when there is a lull," he said by telephone.

One shell that struck the compound set an ambulance on fire, according to video footage of the aftermath of the attack. Scores of people crowded beneath tarps outside the hospital building waited for care as someone wailed in the background.

More than 1,000 civilians — many with amputations or chest wounds — had been waiting for treatment at the hospital when it was struck, and every 10 minutes or so another one or two died from lack of care, said a third hospital official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the government had not authorized him to speak to the media.

Overwhelmed doctors have been reduced to handing out bandages to the seriously wounded, the official said. More than 100 dead bodies have been left inside the compound because no one will risk burying them amid the constant shelling, he said. The strike was the third to hit the hospital this month.

A Red Cross worker and his mother were also killed in shelling, the third Red Cross staff member killed by shrapnel in the war zone in the past two months, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

"This latest tragic incident shows how dangerous it is for everyone in the area," said Paul Castella, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Colombo.

Rebel spokesman Seevaratnam Puleedevan said shells also hit a home for mentally handicapped women, killing 38 and wounding more than 40.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government has barred journalists and aid workers from the war zone.

The government has come under heavy international criticism for the large civilian toll of its offensive against the rebels, who are cornered in a two square-mile (five square-kilometer) strip of land.

The military said it pressed ahead with its offensive into that strip Wednesday, capturing one of the rebels' heavy guns and fending off a suicide attack by four rebel boats laden with explosives.

Diplomats in Geneva said the United Nations was preparing for an emergency meeting of its Human Rights Council next week to discuss the worsening conflict. Fifteen of the 16 countries needed to back the motion were already on board, European diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Amnesty International urged President Barack Obama to push for a truce and appealed to the U.N. Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into violations of international law.



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No charges will be expected over interrogations

WASHINGTON — Bush administration lawyers who approved harsh interrogation techniques of terror suspects should not face criminal charges, Justice Department investigators say in a draft report that recommends two of the three attorneys face professional sanctions.

The report comes after President Barack Obama decision not to prosecute CIA interrogators who followed advice outlined in the memos.

That decision angered conservatives who accused Obama of selling out the CIA, and from liberals who thought he was being too forgiving of practices they — and Obama — have called torture.


Revisions are possible
Officials conducting the internal Justice Department inquiry into the lawyers who wrote those memos have recommended referring two of the three lawyers — John Yoo and Jay Bybee — to state bar associations for possible disciplinary action.

The person noted that the investigative report was still in draft form and subject to revisions. Attorney General Eric Holder also may make his own determination about what steps to take.

In a letter to two senators, the Justice Department said a key deadline in the inquiry expired Monday, signaling that most of the work on the matter was completed. The letter does not mention the possibility of criminal charges, nor does it name the lawyers under scrutiny.

The memos were written as the Bush administration grappled with the fear and uncertainty following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Over the years that followed, lawyers re-examined and rewrote much of the legal advice.

Last month, the Obama administration released four of the memos about treatment of terror suspects in which lawyers authorized methods including waterboarding, throwing subjects against a wall and forced nudity.

Obama left it to Holder to decide whether those who authorized or approved the methods should face charges.


by the associated press

Iraq says it will stay with the U.S. pullout plan

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s government Monday ruled out allowing U.S. combat troops to remain in Iraqi cities after the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, despite concern that Iraqi forces cannot cope with the security challenge following a resurgence of bombings in recent weeks.

Asking American forces to stay in the cities, including volatile Mosul in the north, would be embarrassing for Iraq’s prime minister, who has staked his political future on claims that the country has turned the corner in the war against Sunni and Shiite extremists.

The departure of heavily armed combat troops from bases inside the cities is important psychologically to many Iraqis, who are eager to regain control of their country after six years of war and U.S. military occupation.

U.S. seems to agree
U.S. officials played down the Iraqi decision, with Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman saying it’s up to the Iraqi government to request an extension of the U.S. presence in the cities and "we intend to fully abide by” terms of the security agreement.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters Monday that violence had not risen to a level that would force a change in the withdrawal schedule.

Privately, some U.S. officers fear the Iraqis may lose control of Mosul within a few months after American forces pull out of Iraq’s third largest city, where al-Qaida and other Sunni militants are active.

Al-Qaida still remains top U.S. Threat

WASHINGTON — The number of terrorist attacks around the world fell by 18 percent last year but rose dramatically in Pakistan, growing in frequency and lethality, the State Department said Thursday.

The department’s annual assessment of global terrorism said al-Qaida and its affiliates continue to be the greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. despite ongoing efforts to disrupt their operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, North Africa, Somalia and Yemen. Terrorist attacks also rose in Afghanistan last year, the report said.

Worldwide terrorist attacks dropped to 11,770 in 2008 from 14,506 in 2007. But the rise of incidents in Pakistan, the report said, reflected "coordination, sophistication and frequency” of bombings by the Taliban and al-Qaida.

It said Iranian-backed violence in Iraq was down, but it accused Iran of sending weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan.


by the associated press

Clinton vows to support troops as they exit Iraq

BAGHDAD — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to reassure nervous Iraqis that the U.S. won’t abandon them, even as she said the American troop withdrawal would stay on schedule despite a recent surge in violence.

On her first visit to Baghdad as chief U.S. diplomat, Clinton said Saturday that Washington remains committed to moving U.S. soldiers out of urban areas by June 30 and pulling out combat troops from the country by 2011.

"Our strategy in working with you may be in a new phase, but we pledge our full and continuing commitment to Iraq and the Iraqi people,” she said after meeting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

Suicide bombings Thursday and Friday killed more than 150 people. But she said the attacks "do not reflect any diversion from security progress.”

by the associated press