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From the Los Angeles Times

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U.S. concerned about former Guantanamo prisoners in Yemen

Some who were released to a Saudi rehabilitation program have become active in Al Qaeda.

By Brian Bennett, Tribune Washington Bureau

November 2, 2010

Reporting from Washington

As the U.S. ratchets up security on cargo packages and digs deeper into the plot to send bombs from Yemen, officials are concerned that a number of high-ranking members of Al Qaeda in Yemen were released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a Saudi rehabilitation program for militants.

The No. 2 leader for the group in Yemen is Saudi national Said Shihri, who was captured by the U.S. in Afghanistan in 2001 and released from Guantanamo in 2007 to the Saudi program. He was featured in a 2009 video announcing the merger of the Saudi Arabian and Yemeni branches of Al Qaeda. His brother was killed in an October 2009 shootout on the Yemeni border while attempting to smuggle suicide vests into Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis have told U.S. officials that the four-step rehabilitation program has an 80% success rate at reforming militants once held by the U.S. But U.S. intelligence officials note that a crucial cadre of those who were released have slipped over the border into Yemen and become key figures in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

"A hard-core group of terrorists have either fooled the system or beat the system, and that is a concern," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice).

The sophisticated bombs discovered last week hidden inside desktop printers bear the hallmarks of a bomb maker in the Yemeni organization. Ibrahim Hassan Asiri is a Saudi fugitive but has not been held in Guantanamo.

Another figure of concern is Uthman Ghamdi, who was released from Guantanamo into the Saudi program in 2006 and is considered a close aide to the American-born cleric Anwar Awlaki, who has become a master strategist and propagandist for Al Qaeda in Yemen. Ghamdi wrote a passage in the jihadi online magazine Inspire, released in October, describing his flight to Guantanamo on a cargo plane.

Last January, the Obama administration suspended transfers of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen after learning that the man accused of trying to set off a bomb last Christmas on a Detroit-bound plane had received training from Al Qaeda there. The Pentagon also announced that it would not repatriate any more Saudi detainees from Guantanamo.

The changes were made after disclosure of a Pentagon report that estimated one-fifth of the detainees who have been released from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo have taken up extremist activity.

In 2009, Saudi Arabia released a list of its 85 most wanted terrorists. Of those, seven who were held in Guantanamo and released from the Saudi program are believed to be at large in Yemen, according to Christopher Boucek, an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has researched the impact of Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation programs.

"There are people who cannot be rehabilitated," Boucek said. The program "is not a silver bullet. It is part of a bigger effort."

There is a question about whether some of the jihadists who were released from the Saudi rehabilitation program and returned to Al Qaeda became double agents helping the Saudi government. Jabir Jubran Fayfi, a former Guantanamo detainee who was released through the program, rejoined Al Qaeda in 2006. Then the Saudi Interior Ministry announced Oct. 15 that Fayfi had surrendered in Yemen. Fayfi reportedly was the source of the intelligence that stopped the package bomb plot.

To combat the immediate threat in Yemen, the U.S. has halted all mail from the country. It has also deployed a six-person team of Transportation Security Administration trainers and technicians with scanning equipment to Yemen to ensure that, when the mail resumes, any cargo leaving that country for the U.S. will be carefully checked.

Members of Congress are already squaring off about whether more legislation is needed to tighten the screening of cargo, or whether to allocate additional resources to the Department of Homeland Security instead.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) plans to introduce a new cargo-screening law when Congress reconvenes Nov. 15. "America's aviation system remains at the top of Al Qaeda's terrorist target list," Markey said Monday. "The cargo industry and business community must recognize more needs to be done to secure cargo planes."

Some representatives, such as Michael McCaul (R- Texas), are hesitant to pass additional legislation. He would prefer that Homeland Security have greater resources and flexibility to increase inspections of cargo planes. He also would like the TSA to accelerate efforts to inspect 100% of cargo on passenger planes coming to the U.S., a level scheduled to be accomplished in 2012.

"I'm not sure more legislation is needed," McCaul said. "The response has to be threat-based."

The most recent law governing cargo screening on passenger planes was passed in 2007.

Markey has long been frustrated at what he sees as industry reluctance to tackle the vulnerabilities of air cargo shipping.

In response to legislative efforts in 2007, a consortium of 18 industry lobbying organizations wrote, "There is no existing technology to allow for efficient inspection of 100% of air cargo."

The lack of technology to efficiently screen all cargo coming into the U.S. has posed a challenge to the TSA goal of screening all inbound cargo by 2013.

"We have tackled the issue of vulnerability," said David Castelveter, vice president for communications for the Air Transport Assn., pointing to the industry's success in meeting the TSA's requirement for 100% screening of domestic cargo in August 2010. "We'd like to weigh in on any changes that might be considered after this, but we're transporters. We abide by the rules."

Inspections can go only so far. The disruption of the Yemen bomb plot, Harman said, shows what a "crucial tool it is to have active and accurate intelligence. I am for making sure we have the best intelligence we can field."

"There is a lot that we can do through inspections, but it won't solve this problem," said UCLA professor emeritus Michael D. Intriligator. "They still have the goal of killing 3 million Americans. There is no way to ensure our protection. It's physically impossible. We are a porous country with a lot of openings. We're not prepared for it."

In the days since the package bomb threat came to light, air passenger screenings have increased. In a move that has been in the works for months, the TSA instituted a new, more thorough pat-down search procedure at airports nationwide over the weekend.

The procedure, which was tested at airports in Boston and Las Vegas this summer, allows officers to pat down passengers with the fronts of their hands to feel for objects that may be hidden under clothing. In the past, TSA officials used only the backs of their hands to check for such objects around a passenger's chest and groin.

The pat-down procedure is being used on passengers who choose not to be screened by the 317 new full-body scanners that are deployed at 65 airports nationwide. The scanners use low doses of either radio waves or X-rays to produce what resembles a nude image of the passenger to find weapons hidden under clothing.

A spokesman for the ACLU complained Monday about the new pat-down procedure, saying passengers have an unhappy choice between going through a full-body scanner or undergoing a pat-down search.

"Americans now must choose between a virtual strip search and a grope," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel to the ACLU. He declined to say whether the ACLU would file a legal challenge to the new procedure, but he said the ACLU would accept complaints from passengers about the procedure on its website.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-yemen-bomb-20101102,0,5582247,print.story

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Britain, Germany increase flight security after bomb scare

Germany suspends all passenger flights on Yemen's national airline and Britain bans unaccompanied air freight from Somalia and Yemen. Both countries were layover points for one of the two U.S.-bound flights involved in last week's bomb plot.

The war the election forgot

War sets the rhythm for military spouses like Veda Olechny. But for just about everyone else, it's easy to ignore, and in this turbulent election season there is little mention of Afghanistan or Iraq.

By Faye Fiore and Mark Z. Barabak

November 2, 2010

Reporting from Marydel, Del., and Los Angeles

It's easy to tell 1st Sgt. Patrick Olechny is away. The freezer is stocked with single-serving dinners. The TV is off and, at nearly 8 p.m., the living room is dark.

Olechny is at war in Afghanistan, on his fourth tour of combat duty. His wife, Veda, is waiting for his return — in time for Thanksgiving, she prays each night.

War sets the rhythm for military families like theirs: Home by 9, in case he beeps on Skype. Cellphone charged, in case he calls. No point buying pot roast; she can't finish it herself.

But for just about everyone else, the war is easy to ignore. In this turbulent election season — amid the talk of "tea parties" and the economy and President Obama's approval rating and the fight to control Congress and bailouts and deficits and fear and anger — there is little mention of Afghanistan or Iraq.

"I hate to say we've moved on, but politically and from an election standpoint there's nobody out there trying to prosecute this as an issue," said Evan Tracey, whose Campaign Media Analysis Group tracks political advertising nationwide. "There's no discussion in any detail in any campaign that I've seen at any level, state or federal."

Even here in the shadow of Dover Air Force Base, where the coffins come home, the political conversation is not about war but witchcraft — a youthful dalliance of Republican Senate hopeful Christine O'Donnell — and whether her Democratic rival, Chris Coons, was only joking when he described himself in a college essay as "a bearded Marxist."

Veda doesn't blame people for their inattention. They have troubles of their own. "People are busy with their lives because of the economy. It's understandable," she says. "A wife sitting at home waiting for a soldier to finish deployment, that's her focus every day. You want to tell people about it, then you realize they really aren't interested."

The United States is now in the ninth year of the longest conflict in its history, fought by 150,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq at a cost of more than $1 trillion. That is considerably more than the ultimate price of the much-debated Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out automakers, banks and a handful of insurers.

Yet neither party has much incentive to discuss the fighting half a world away.

Democrats are pleased with the winding down of U.S. involvement in Iraq, but divided over Obama's decision to escalate efforts in Afghanistan; they don't want to pile onto a president already in political trouble.

Republicans, unhappy with Obama's opposition to the Iraq war when he ran for president, tend to agree with his approach in Afghanistan; but they aren't about to praise the Democratic commander in chief in the middle of the midterm campaign.

But for the Olechnys, avoidance is not an option.

He's 57, she's 56. They live in a double-wide trailer on two acres they bought 37 years ago on the Maryland- Delaware border. They grew up on the Delaware side, where chickens outnumber people 300 to 1.

He used to chase her around the playground in grade school. At 16, she was engaged. At 17, he joined the Army and went to Vietnam. She wrote him every day. They married as soon as he returned, before she even graduated.

Veda figured her husband's combat days were over, and for 25 years they were. He trained in Vietnam to fix helicopters, which proved a valuable skill back home. He was hired by the Army National Guard as a civilian mechanic. He also joined the Guard, which meant a weekend a month of soldiering and two weeks in the summer. She was OK with that.

Then in 1996, at age 43, he volunteered to go to Bosnia. Who goes to war at 43? And where is Bosnia? Veda was confused. Nine weeks later he came home in one piece. "I told him if he ever did that again I would divorce him," she remembers, laughing.

Years passed. Then came Sept. 11, 2001, followed by the war in Iraq. In the summer of 2004, Olechny's unit was called. "I swear Veda, I did not volunteer," he told her. It didn't matter. He had a skill his country needed. At 51, he was headed back to war.

The way the military is structured, service members and their families can be inconspicuous. The active-duty force is tucked away on far-off installations — Ft. Hood on the plains of Texas, Ft. Benning in the piney woods of Georgia.

"They train in remote areas, then get on a plane and go," said Norbert R. Ryan Jr., a retired Navy vice admiral and president of the Virginia-based Military Officers Assn. of America. "Out of sight, out of mind."

For members of the National Guard and Reserves — civilians like Olechny called up for war — the isolation seems even more acute. They are sprinkled throughout 3,000 or so communities across the country, attached to no base, no military housing, no ready group of people like them.

Veda can count on one hand the number of military households in Marydel, population 1,117, a half-hour drive from Dover. Amish buggies are a more familiar site than Army uniforms. When her husband left, she slept in his T-shirt for weeks.

"I cried an awful lot," she says, lighting a cigarette in the dining room, which serves as a shrine to her husband's service and reflects her efforts to stay busy. His first of two bronze stars is in a curio cabinet. The patriotic birdhouse she painted is a centerpiece.

In the months after the Iraq war began, the country was flush with patriotism and there seemed no end of support for the 1% of Americans fighting for everybody else. Soon enough, the military was showing the strain of multiple deployments and a vicious ground war: amputations, traumatic brain injuries, rising rates of suicide, divorce, prescription drug addiction. Few in the civilian world knew, or much cared.

The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has had much less impact than the war in Vietnam, which helped bring down a president and nearly tore the country apart.

"There are not as many people fighting," said Daniel Hallin, a UC San Diego political scientist who has written extensively on war and its coverage in the media. "There are not as many young people worrying about being drafted and sent there. No one goes unless they volunteer. That makes it less of an issue."

The year her husband spent in Iraq, Veda lived alone for the first time ever. Their son, P.J., was married and on his own. The separation was different from Olechny's time in Vietnam. Back then, with no cellphones or e-mail, Veda's only connection was the nightly news -- and she stayed glued. This time, she wanted nothing to do with war coverage that would only upset her. She drove straight home from her job as a unit manager at a credit card company and waited.

"I lived around his phone calls, stayed home instead of going out, afraid I would miss him," she says . When she knew his unit was flying a mission, and he didn't check in, she e-mailed: "Car 54, where are you?"

In 2005, Olechny came home to a yard studded with yellow ribbons and flags, four volunteer fire trucks and a gantlet of friends. "I told the general, 'That's it,' " Veda said, already planning her husband's retirement and the traveling they would do.

The retirement lasted two weeks. Aviation mechanics were in higher demand than ever for two wars that depend on aircraft to move troops and supplies and transport casualties. Olechny was asked back to his civilian job to fix helicopters part time. He stayed in the Guard, determined to serve 40 years.

In December, his unit — Company A 3/238 Aviation Battalion — was called to Afghanistan. Veda didn't bother to try to talk him out of it: "It gets in their blood."

It took a month before their dogs, Butchie and Mattie, stopped waiting for him at the door. She knew how they felt.

By then, the housing market had collapsed, Wall Street had nearly cratered, unemployment soared and the country's mind was firmly fixed on other problems.

In Washington, what Ryan, the former vice admiral, called the "Pearl Harbor moment" faded and with it the unflagging support for America's troops. A deficit-conscious Congress left town last month to campaign without passing the bill that pays for defense. When lawmakers return, they are set to approve the lowest military pay raises in nearly half a century.

"After almost 10 years of war and enormous sacrifice, that's the wrong message," Ryan said. "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong."

The laptop beeps in the corner of the Olechny dining room and Veda pulls up a chair. It's 9 p.m. A black clock is set for Afghanistan time: 5:30 a.m. Her husband's image from his plywood hut pops up. This is how he starts his day and she ends hers.

When the phone rings with campaign calls, Veda hangs up. No candidate is talking about a war she can't stop thinking about. She's not even sure she'll vote Tuesday.

This spring, Patrick Olechny will have met his goal of 40 years of service and Veda will have seen him through four wars. She has grown from a love-struck schoolgirl writing letters to her "Soldier Boy" (it was their song) to a battle-tested military wife and support group leader helping others hold on.

People sometimes tell her that after all this time she must have gotten used to it. Veda shakes her head.

"You never get used to it," she says. "You just get through it."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-midterms-war-20101102,0,7379340,print.story

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EDITORIAL

Screening for terror

Plugging every aviation security hole is impossible, which leaves lawmakers with some challenging choices to make.

November 2, 2010

People who see the glass as half full will regard the foiling of last week's international bomb plot as a triumph for counter-terrorism efforts. After all, it was the combination of a tip from Saudi Arabian intelligence services and fast action from U.S. officials that thwarted what is believed to be Al Qaeda's first attempt to deliver a bomb using the mail. But those of a more pessimistic bent will point out that the terrorists sought to conceal the explosives in air cargo simply because security has been tightened for passengers. In other words, as soon as the government reacts to an attack by tightening up in one area, the bad guys will find a weakness somewhere else to exploit.

We suspect the latter point is lost on Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who was quick to propose a bill requiring that 100% of freight on cargo planes be screened. "It is time for the shipping industry and the business community to accept the reality that more needs to be done to secure cargo planes so that they cannot be turned into delivery systems for bombs targeting our country," he said in a statement. That sounds good, but it's not easy to implement. Markey introduced a bill approved by Congress in 2007 requiring that, by August 2010, all cargo on passenger planes be inspected. While the Transportation Security Administration has made progress in achieving the goal, it's still a long way from succeeding, according to a June report by the Government Accountability Office — and when it comes to cargo on passenger planes arriving from foreign countries, the TSA's guess that about 50% is being screened is based on "estimates rather than actual data as required by law," the GAO says.

The main problem is that the U.S. can't compel foreign countries to screen cargo. And when it comes to expanding the screening from passenger planes to cargo planes, the complexities mount; it might be impossible to screen every package at airports because the volume of international air freight is so great, meaning some of the screening would have to be done by factories and/or shippers, yet that presents opportunities to tamper with the packages after they've been checked. This isn't to suggest that it's pointless to try to tighten cargo security, only that putting up an impenetrable net is likely to prove impossible. And if cargo planes become more difficult targets, terrorists will simply shift to trains, buses or container ships.

For lawmakers, the challenge of combating terrorism is to balance the size and nature of the threat against the costs of reducing it and the effects on international commerce — a feat that becomes harder to achieve in the emotional wake of a bombing, failed or otherwise. We're all for increased vigilance and plugging security holes, but reacting to the last attack without focusing on the next one won't work.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bombs-20101102,0,3291926,print.story

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One part of Arizona immigration law may be upheld

Three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit signals possible approval of requiring police to check legal status of suspected criminals.

By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

November 2, 2010

Reporting from San Francisco

A federal appeals court, reviewing Arizona's tough new immigration law while protestors outside shouted and waved signs, suggested during a hearing Monday that the state may be permitted to require police to investigate the immigration status of suspected criminals and yet be powerless to do anything about a person's illegal residency.

During an hourlong hearing, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals examined four provisions of the Arizona law that a federal judge in Phoenix blocked as unconstitutional. The three-judge appeals panel appeared largely inclined to agree with the lower court's July ruling, which said the law usurped the federal government's sole authority to regulate immigration.

But the panel expressed skepticism about the part of the ruling that blocked the state from requiring police to at least investigate the immigration status of someone stopped on suspicion of a crime.

After a lawyer for the federal government told the court the provision was illegal, a frustrated Judge John T. Noonan Jr., a moderate Republican appointee, noted that federal law permits police to inquire about a person's immigration status.

On that score, "you don't have an argument," the judge told the lawyer for the Obama administration.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican campaigning for reelection, flew in for the hearing and sat at the front of the courtroom. Brewer signed the legislation known as SB 1070 into law in April, sparking protests around the country from immigrant rights activists who said it would lead to racial profiling.

Brewer's actions boosted her flagging reelection campaign, while national polls showed that a majority of Americans supported the Arizona law.

After the hearing, the governor said that 22 other states were poised to pass similarly tough laws against illegal immigrants.

"The federal government needs to do its job so Arizona doesn't have to," Brewer said.

John J. Bouma, who represented Arizona in the case, told the court that the border state was suffering from serious crimes committed by illegal immigrants who, once in the country, are never sent back.

"Crossing the border is the same as crossing into the finish line," Bouma said.

Edwin S. Kneedler, the deputy solicitor general representing the Obama administration in challenging the Arizona law, said it infringed on the power of the federal government over foreign relations and could affect U.S. citizens abroad if other countries adopted similar laws.

Comments from the judges suggested they were likely to reject provisions that would make it a crime for an immigrant to fail to carry immigration papers and for illegal immigrants to seek and accept paid work.

Judge Carlos T. Bea, a Republican appointee who was born in Spain, observed that Arizona was attempting to take over the federal government's responsibility for policing immigration. Bea likened it to a state enforcing federal income tax law.

When Bouma defended a part of the law that permitted the state to punish illegal immigrants for working, Bea said he and his fellow judges were bound by a prior 9th Circuit panel ruling.

"The problem is you are arguing something that is foreclosed to us," Bea told the lawyer.

Noonan also suggested that parts of the Arizona law went too far. "Isn't that getting into federal territory?" he asked at one point.

Judge Richard A. Paez, a Democratic appointee, questioned whether Arizona had the legal authority and even the expertise to determine whether a person should be removed from the country.

"Hasn't the federal government in place an elaborate scheme for determining whether someone is removable or not?" Paez asked, adding, "It is not an easy call."

UC Hastings Law Professor David I. Levine, who attended the hearing, said afterward that he expected the court would interpret at least one of the provisions — requiring police to investigate a person's immigration status — as constitutional but would continue to block other controversial provisions.

"This is going to be a mixed verdict," Levine said. Even though part of the law may be revived, it "may end up being toothless," he added.

Brewer, at a news conference after the hearing, said Arizona would take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. A decision by the 9th Circuit is expected within weeks or months.

Outside the court, nearly 200 protestors against SB 1070 squared off with a smaller group carrying American flags and signs urging the court to uphold the law.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1102-arizona-law-20101102,0,5257829,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Earlier Flight May Have Been Dry Run for Plotters

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials in September intercepted several packages containing books, papers, CDs and other household items shipped to Chicago from Yemen and considered the possibility that the parcels might be a test run for a terrorist attack, two officials said Monday night.

Now the intelligence officials believe that the shipments, whose hour-by-hour locations could be tracked by the sender on the shippers' Web sites, may have been used to plan the route and timing for two printer cartridges packed with explosives that were sent from Yemen and intercepted in Britain and Dubai on Friday.

In September, after American counterterrorism agencies received information linking the packages to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , the terror network's branch in Yemen, intelligence officers stopped the shipments in transit and searched them, said the officials, who would discuss the operation only on the condition of anonymity. They found no explosives, and the packages were permitted to continue to what appeared to be “random addresses” with no connection to the terrorist group in Chicago.

“At the time, people obviously took notice and — knowing of the terrorist group's interest in aviation — considered the possibility that AQAP might be exploring the logistics of the cargo system,” one of the officials said, referring to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The apparent test run might have permitted the plotters to estimate when cargo planes carrying the doctored toner cartridges would be over Chicago or another city. That would conceivably enable them to set timers on the two devices to set off explosions where they would cause the greatest damage.

The September shipments were first reported by ABC News on Monday night, which also noted that Inspire, the English-language magazine of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, recently published a picture of the Chicago skyline.

One of the officials said that when the American intelligence agents received a tip from Saudi intelligence officials last week that bombs might be on cargo flights to Chicago from Yemen, analysts “recalled the incident and factored it in to our government's very prompt response.”

“Both events reflect solid intelligence work,” the official said.

On Monday, Germany, France and Britain said they had banned cargo shipments from Yemen, following a similar move by the United States. Britain prohibited passengers from carrying printer cartridges aboard flights, and Germany halted passenger flights from Yemen as well. Many countries have stepped up cargo screening, but no additional bombs have been found.

After the recovery of the unexploded printer cartridges in Dubai and Britain on Friday, Yemeni and American intelligence officials have stepped up the hunt for Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri , 28, a Saudi who is believed to be the top technical expert of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. They believe he designed the underwear explosives that failed to detonate aboard a Detroit-bound airliner last Dec. 25, as well as the body-cavity bomb that killed his younger brother, Abdullah al-Asiri, in a failed attempt last year to assassinate the top Saudi counterterrorism official , Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.

In a related development, a Yemeni official in Washington said late Monday night that prosecutors in Yemen intend to charge the American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki later this week with “the crime of promoting violence and the killing of foreigners.” The official, who asked not to be named, said the case would likely be sent to a specialized criminal court in Sana, the capital.

No evidence has been made public linking Mr. Awlaki to the printer cartridge bombs, but intelligence officials believe he played a role in the failed airliner bombing last December, and he has publicly called for more attacks on the United States. Early this year, he became the first American citizen to be placed on the Central Intelligence Agency 's list of terrorists approved for targeted killing.

On Monday, information about the latest failed plot continued to emerge. An American official said that the addresses on the packages were outdated addresses for Jewish institutions in Chicago. But in place of the names of the institutions, the packages bore the names of historical figures from the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, the official said. The addresses are one reason that investigators now believe the plan may have been to blow up the planes, since there were no longer synagogues at the Chicago locations.

Explosives experts with the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been sent to London and Dubai to inspect the printer bombs, and technicians planned to “reverse-engineer” the bombs to understand their construction and purpose, Janet Napolitano , the homeland security secretary, told National Public Radio . The Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh , said Sunday that he would keep up pressure on Al Qaeda , which he said had killed 70 members of the Yemeni Army and security forces during the past four weeks.

American counterterrorism officials, meanwhile, said they were taking a new look at the crash of a United Parcel Service cargo plane in Dubai on Sept. 3 in light of the explosives plot, which used both U.P.S. and FedEx. An investigation of the crash, which involved an onboard fire and killed the two pilots, found no evidence of an explosion.

New details about the two explosive packages were disclosed by security officials in several countries, who discussed the continuing investigation on condition of anonymity. The explosive powder, pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, was found inside toner cartridges that were themselves inside HP LaserJet P2055 printers, according to officials from Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

German security officials also offered new details about the two bombs, one of which was on a plane that made a stop in Cologne. They said that bomb, which was found at the East Midlands Airport near Nottingham, England, contained 400 grams, or about 14 ounces, of PETN, one of the most powerful explosives known. The one found in Dubai contained 300 grams of PETN, the officials said.

Neal Langerman, an expert on explosives at Advanced Chemical Safety, a consulting firm in San Diego, said 14 ounces of PETN is the equivalent of five pounds of TNT. He said that a one-pound stick of TNT would level a house.

Both bombs contained circuit boards from cellphones, but the phone parts appeared to be used as timers, because the so-called SIM cards necessary to receive calls were missing, American officials said. Their construction appeared to support the conclusion, announced Sunday by John O. Brennan , the White House counterterrorism adviser, that the bombs were designed to blow up aboard the aircraft.

At least one of the packages was initially carried out of Yemen on two Qatar Airways passenger flights, and it was unclear whether they were intended to take down those passenger jets or the U.P.S. and FedEx cargo planes scheduled later to carry them to the United States.

An official familiar with the investigation said that both packages bore the name of a Yemeni student, Hanan al-Samawi, as the sender. Yemeni officials arrested Ms. Samawi but released her after determining that the packages were dropped off at the U.P.S. and FedEx offices in Sana, the Yemeni capital, not by Ms. Samawi but by another woman using her identity.

At the core of the shipping plot, American officials believe, was Mr. Asiri, the suspected Qaeda bomb maker. Saudi news accounts say he is the son of a Saudi military man and grew up in a religious family in the Saudi capital, Riyadh; studied chemistry at King Saud University, and later joined a militant cell hoping to fight the Americans in Iraq.

But he does not appear to have fought in either Iraq or Afghanistan. He appears to have gotten his training after moving to Yemen around 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/02terror.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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In Air Cargo Business, It's Speed vs. Screening, Creating a Weak Link in Security

It is an essential lubricant of the global economy — the multibillion-dollar air cargo industry, which every day carries millions of express packages of every shape and size around the world, parcels that can include things as diverse as an electronic component and a human body part.

But the discovery last week that terrorists had used United Parcel Service and FedEx to ship two explosive devices has set off a debate over what can be done to improve cargo security without damaging a business built on getting packages anywhere, quickly and cheaply.

The Obama administration is expected to announce measures soon to tighten the screening of air cargo, an area long viewed by experts as a weak link in post-9/11 security procedures. But several transportation experts say that placing a 100 percent screening requirement on cargo carriers — like the one that now exists for cargo placed on passenger airlines — would cause the system of express air delivery to grind to a halt.

Those experts note that most shipments carried by air — about 80 percent — come from frequent customers who have longstanding relationships and security programs in place. The greatest risks, they say, involve “one-off” packages by random customers, like the recent explosive-laden shipments from Yemen headed to Chicago that initially eluded detection.

“You cannot stop the flow of time-sensitive air freight,” said Yossi Sheffi, the director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . “It is simply not realistic.”

Officials at the Transportation Security Administration declined Monday to discuss what new steps might be imposed. But aides on Capitol Hill said they expected the Obama administration to demand physical inspection of certain “high risk” cargo carried on all-cargo flights, particularly shipments coming from nations where terror groups are known to operate, like Yemen.

The administration is also considering demanding more notice about the contents on cargo flights bound for the United States, so officials can perhaps intervene to request additional screening before a flight takes off. The current requirement for cargo manifests is four hours before the flight is scheduled to arrive.

Experts say air cargo poses unique dilemmas because of the vast volume of packages and the patchwork system of regulations governing inspections. In addition, air cargo moves both on airlines that carry only freight and on passenger planes. And the freight industry is by no means uniform. There are giant players like FedEx and U.P.S. and hundreds of small companies.

For now, freight carried on all-cargo planes does not have as stringent screening requirements as freight on passenger planes. Also, foreign carriers that bring cargo into the United States operate by their own sets of rules, which vary significantly from country to country.

“The issue is you don't have a seamless set of standards that apply globally from end to end in the global network with the same level of sensitivity,” said Robert W. Mann Jr., an aviation industry expert in Port Washington, N.Y.

Still, T.S.A. officials emphasized Monday that even with the latest incident, air cargo security has improved in recent years, as demanded by Congress, particularly on domestic passenger flights, where cargo is now always inspected for threats before it is loaded.

“We have taken significant steps to strengthen the security of international air cargo,” John S. Pistole , the T.S.A. administrator, said in a statement. “T.S.A. will continue to evolve our security procedures.”

Every day, 20 million pounds of cargo, or 16 percent of the total freight carried by air into or out of the United States, are transported by passenger planes, according to the International Air Cargo Association. The vast majority, or 84 percent, is carried on cargo planes.

“Screening all these packages is not as easy as screening passengers — it's a much more difficult thing to do and do effectively,” said Edmund S. Greenslet, the publisher of The Airline Monitor, an industry trade publication. “It's the weak link in the whole airline system.”

The air cargo system is built into the way many companies do business. Medtronic , the world's biggest producer of medical devices, for example, built a distribution center near a FedEx hub in Memphis to send out thousands of devices like spinal implants and heart pacemakers daily to hospitals worldwide.

The way cargo is packed also makes it difficult to inspect. For example, many containers of goods headed to the United States arrive at airports shrink-wrapped and are given an exemption from the inspection requirement, said Stephen M. Lord, director of homeland security and justice at the Government Accountability Office .

And American transportation security officials do not do enough to ensure that the inspections that foreign governments or air carriers conduct are rigorous enough to find explosive material about to be loaded onto passenger flights, Mr. Lord said.

“They still have work to do to meet the existing mandate,” he said. “And that means there is a remaining vulnerability on air cargo.”

Several European countries said Monday that they would suspend all cargo shipments from Yemen, with Britain also restricting shipments from Somalia. Germany halted all Yemeni passenger flights as well.

Theresa May, the British home secretary, said the government would work with the aviation industry and with the manufacturers of airport screening equipment “to devise a sustainable, proportionate, long-term security regime” that would meet the new terrorist threat to air cargo shipments.

Britain also said air passengers would not be permitted to carry on ink cartridges weighing about a pound, the size of those used in the plot. Both bans are to be in place, at first, for a month.

Union officials representing pilots who fly cargo planes said the security of those planes needed to be improved.

“We believe that current standards in air cargo screening are inadequate,” said Brian Gaudet, a spokesman for the International Pilots Association.

Devices exist that would allow cargo companies to scan for explosives every container about to be loaded into the hold of an airplane, even without unloading the containers. But a single one of these machines — which use a technology known as pulsed fast neutron analysis — can cost more than $10 million, and five to 10 minutes are needed to check each shipment, industry officials said, a crippling cost given the thousands of different departure points globally for cargo.

There are simpler options — bomb-sniffing dogs or small hand-held devices that can pick up traces of explosives.

During the height of the international drug trade years ago, cargo shippers developed security algorithms to better identity suspect packages sent by occasional customers or individuals, said Mr. Sheffi, from M.I.T.

Such algorithms use factors like a package's origin, its destination and the cost of a shipment relative to the value of the object shipped, he said. Mr. Sheffi said he thought similar methods were being used today with packages that might have been sent by terrorist groups.

Brian Clancy, a managing director at Logistics Capital and Strategy, a financial and strategic advisory firm based in Arlington, Va., said: “No system is ever going to be perfect, and the tricky part is knowing what to look for.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/business/02cargo.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Child Soldier for Al Qaeda Is Sentenced for War Crimes

WASHINGTON — A United States military commission at Guantánamo Bay has sentenced a former child soldier for Al Qaeda to 40 years in prison for war crimes — but he might be released in less than three years, the Defense Department said.

A panel of seven military officers at the American military base in Cuba determined on Sunday that the child soldier, Omar Khadr , 24, should be imprisoned — for terrorism-related offenses he committed in Afghanistan when he was a teenager — until he nearly reaches retirement age.

But that sentence was theoretical. Under the terms of a plea agreement, Mr. Khadr will serve no more than eight years. Moreover, after one year, Mr. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is likely to be transferred to a prison in Canada, where he would be eligible to apply for parole after serving two years and eight months.

“Were Khadr to be transferred, the terms of his incarceration would be subject to existing Canadian laws pertaining to custody and conditional release,” the Defense Department said in a statement, adding that the United States understood that Mr. Khadr “would be eligible to apply for parole after serving one-third of his sentence.”

Exactly how Mr. Khadr's case will be handled by the Canadian parole system is unclear.

In murder cases, the Parole Board of Canada normally credits preconviction time served in custody to calculate when prisoners can apply for parole. Because Mr. Khadr was arrested just over eight years ago, he could be eligible as soon as he enters Canada.

But murder convictions in Canada carry a mandatory life sentence, which may enable the parole board to alter its normal practice, said David M. Paciocco, a law professor at the University of Ottawa. And because Mr. Khadr was 15 at the time of his arrest, special provisions of Canada's prisoner-transfer laws related to murder convictions may apply, said Allan Manson, a professor of law at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Even if Mr. Khadr is turned down on his first application, Professor Manson said, he is almost certain to be released after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Mr. Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 after a firefight with American troops.

During that battle, an American sergeant, Christopher Speer, was killed by a grenade that Mr. Khadr was accused of throwing. A videotape found after the firefight was said to show Mr. Khadr making and planting roadside bombs.

Last week, Mr. Khadr, who was born in Toronto and comes from a Qaeda-linked family, pleaded guilty to all five charges against him, including murder in violation of the laws of war, spying and providing support to terrorism.

After his plea, a jury of seven military officers — who had not been told how long his maximum imprisonment would be under the plea agreement — spent several days hearing testimony about how to sentence him. Under tribunal rules, he would serve either the sentence imposed by the panel or the maximum time laid out in the plea agreement, whichever was shorter.

Prosecutors called Tabitha Speer, the widow of the Army sergeant killed by the grenade, who read letters from their children about their sadness at losing their father. The children were 3 and 9 months when their father died.

The defense, which argued for leniency because of Mr. Khadr's youth, submitted evidence that he would probably attend a college in Edmonton, Alberta, after his release. Mr. Khadr also acknowledged responsibility for his acts and apologized to Ms. Speer.

Although prosecutors asked for a sentence of 25 years, the panel decided instead on a 40-year term. After the official sentence was announced, the judge disclosed Mr. Khadr's eight-year plea agreement.

The judge also released the text of diplomatic notes exchanged by the United States and Canada over Mr. Khadr's eligibility for eventual transfer.

In them, the United States said it would support his application to transfer after a year, and the Canadian government said it was “inclined to favorably consider Mr. Khadr's application to be transferred to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence.”

Both governments expressed doubt about whether the parole board in Canada — an independent agency— would release Mr. Khadr early, emphasizing “that eligibility for parole does not mean that the release will be granted.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/us/02detain.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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4 U.S. Citizens Killed in Mexico

November 02, 2010

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Four U.S. citizens were shot to death in separate attacks in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexican authorities said Monday.

Chihuahua state prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said Edgar Lopez, 35, of El Paso, Texas, was killed Sunday along with two Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house.

On Saturday, a 26-year-old U.S. woman and an American boy were slain shortly after crossing an international bridge from El Paso. Giovanna Herrera and Luis Araiza, 15, were shot to death along with a Mexican man traveling with them just after 11 a.m., Sandoval said.

Sandoval said authorities also identified a 24-year-old woman killed Friday inside a tortilla shop as Lorena Izaguirre, a U.S. citizen and El Paso resident. A Mexican man was also found dead in the store.

Sandoval did not provide any information about possible motive in any of the slayings.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed three of the killings but did not have any information about Izaguirre. He said officials had been in touch with the victims' families but offered no other details.

Ciudad Juarez has become one of the world's deadliest cities amid a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels. More than 2,000 people have been killed this year in the city, which is across the border from El Paso.

Also Monday, federal police said they arrested a U.S. man accused of being a member of the Aztecas gang, whose members work as hitmen for the Juarez cartel and operate on both sides of the border. Angel Martinez, 24, was arrested Saturday in Ciudad Juarez when he was traveling with another gang member, the department said.

Elsewhere, three city police officers were gunned down early Monday in a drive-by shooting as they patrolled the heart of Acapulco's upscale tourist district, authorities said.

Another officer was wounded, according to a statement from the Public Safety Department in southern Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located.

The officers were patrolling the Puerto Marques area around 1 a.m. when they were ambushed by suspects shooting assault rifles from inside a car, police said.

Violence continues to escalate in the Pacific resort city, days after Mayor Jose Luis Avila Sanchez warned people to stay indoors after dark. Ten other people were killed between Sunday and Monday around the area. Authorities also were trying to determine whether a burned corpse found in a car was the body of a Canadian businessman who disappeared last week.

Meanwhile, the remains of seven people were found Sunday in a mass grave in Nogales, on the Arizona border. Mayor Jose Angel Hernandez said a family walking near the site noticed what appeared to be part of a body sticking up in a riverbed. Officers recovered six bodies and a severed head in the grave. A seventh headless body was found nearby.

In the border city of Tijuana, state police seized more than 14 tons (13 metric tons) of marijuana in two vehicles at a house in the same neighborhood where gunmen killed 13 people at a drug rehab center 10 days ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/11/01/world/americas/AP-LT-Drug-War-Mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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OPINION

How to Keep Terrorism Grounded

Washington

LAST week our country averted a disaster. Good work by American and foreign intelligence officials pinpointed explosives hidden in packages shipped in Yemen and bound on airplanes for the United States. But we cannot rely on getting such timely, accurate intelligence — it often is simply unavailable — and the episode highlighted a number of problems with our system for screening inbound air cargo.

The Department of Homeland Security has established very good “risk rating” systems to prevent dangerous goods from entering the country. The problem is that these systems are used only for cargo on ships, not for that arriving by air.

For oceangoing cargo, importers and shippers are required to provide substantial data on every container: the country of origin, the location where the container was packed, the seller, the buyer, where on the ship the container is stored and so forth.

The Department of Homeland Security, through its Customs and Border Protection agency, uses this data to generate a risk rating, and any package with a high rating gets substantial additional scrutiny. Sometimes this includes a physical search by foreign security personnel under the guidance of American officials, and in all cases it occurs before the ship even leaves the foreign port. Any package from trouble-ridden Yemen would be seen as a risk and likely would be a target for additional scrutiny.

So why is there no similar system in place for air cargo? There are two parts to the answer: one has to do with Congress and the other with the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2007, Congress passed a law requiring, within three years, physical screening — X-rays, dogs and the like — for all cargo on passenger planes. But the law did nothing to increase security on all-cargo flights like those operated by U.P.S. And while it didn't explicitly ban the use of risk rating, Congress clearly didn't want any shortcuts — it wanted every package checked physically. In effect, lawmakers made the perfect the enemy of the good.

Homeland Security officials had a tough challenge in meeting the Congressional mandate, but in large part they succeeded: by August of this year, 100 percent of cargo on passenger flights within and from the United States was being physically screened. However, only about 65 percent of cargo on passenger planes arriving in the United States from abroad is now subjected to some physical screening, and the percentage is far lower on all-cargo flights.

Some officials insist that we will have 100-percent physical screening for inbound air cargo within a few years. But that is wildly optimistic — we lack authority to force foreign countries to conduct the physical screening mandated by Congress, and many of these countries lack the resources to do it.

And even if we could compel adherence to our screening requirements, that would still not address cargo-only flights, which were untouched by the 2007 law. Given that nearly three-quarters of air cargo is moved by all-cargo flights, a physical screening system for them may not be feasible even inside the United States.

The only practical way to increase the security of inbound air cargo is to rely on a risk rating system rather than a physical screening system. It simply makes sense to decide which packages and flights are most likely to be dangerous, and focus on them. Besides, the information collection and analysis would not even require building new infrastructure or imposing our rules on foreign soil. Homeland security officials already collect electronically most of the data needed for risk analysis of air cargo.

Critically, however, the officials who get this data are from Customs and Border Protection, while the people Congress assigned to handle air cargo screening are from the Transportation Security Administration. The T.S.A. has understandably focused on the physical screening requirements in the 2007 law, because that's what our lawmakers wanted and that's what its employees are trained to do with air passengers and luggage.

Let's hope that last week's close call will convince T.S.A. officials and Congress that universal physical screening is a long way off, and that in the meantime we need a risk-assessment system for air cargo modeled on the one Customs uses for ship-borne containers.

It would take courage for the Homeland Security Department to tell Congress, “We've got to do things a bit differently than you may have had in mind — we're going to use this well-tested risk-rating model.” But it would significantly enhance national security.

Stephen R. Heifetz, a lawyer, was the deputy assistant secretary for policy development at the Department of Homeland Security from 2007 to March 2010.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/opinion/02heifetz.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

Disaster Averted

The discovery of two explosive devices packed aboard airplanes was a testament to American intelligence, and to the efforts of Saudi Arabia, which has played an ambiguous role in global antiterrorism operations. But the near disasters remind us that Al Qaeda remains eager to attack the United States and other nations. They highlight the need for constant vigilance, improved security — and economic and political reforms in Yemen that could counter Al Qaeda's appeal.

The two air packages — both sent from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago — were intercepted in Britain and Dubai. In both cases, the powerful explosive PETN was concealed in printer cartridges and experts said the force of these sophisticated bombs would have been enough to bring down the planes.

Saudi Arabia deserves credit for averting the disaster. It alerted Washington to the threat so that officials could locate and defuse the packages. Once known as the home base of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the country too often has been a reluctant ally in the fight against extremists. It seems to appreciate the problem more acutely now that Al Qaeda's branch in the Arabian Peninsula is growing in strength. The Saudi monarchy needs to do more at home, where extremism is tolerated and even encouraged in mosques and schools.

The Obama team was justifiably criticized last December when a Nigerian man trained in Yemen tried to blow a hole in the side of a Detroit-bound flight. But a staunch Obama critic, Representative Peter King, a Republican of New York, said: “On this particular matter, I think the administration has handled it perfectly.”

Still, the incident exposed continued security lapses. Since 9/11, countries have been more rigorous about inspecting passenger planes, but cargo planes — which initially carried the two bombs — are largely ignored. The United States, Britain, Germany and France have halted cargo shipments from Yemen, but that cannot continue indefinitely. Washington missed a deadline last August to require inspections of cargo on all passenger planes and must put the system in place.

The Obama administration almost certainly will have to escalate its war against Al Qaeda in Yemen, while guarding against strikes that kill civilians. And it must work with the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and with Saudi Arabia, Yemen's main Arab ally and benefactor. The United States also must continue to lead international efforts to support Yemen with economic and development aid so that the people of the Arab world's poorest country are not drawn to extremists.

It is impossible to rule out terrorist attacks. It is possible to be more vigilant and to learn from each failed attempt how to better prevent the next one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/opinion/02tue2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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44 years for acid attack 'brutality'

Cicero grandma used 3 teens to carry out 2008 plot

November 2, 2010

BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN

Cicero grandmother Ofelia Garcia was sentenced to 44 years in prison Monday for masterminding a vindictive sulfuric acid attack that severely disfigured a Logan Square social worker.

The pony-tailed Garcia, 61, chose not to speak before Cook County Judge Nicholas Ford sentenced her for the July 28, 2008 assault that she and her former daughter-in-law Maria Olvera-Garcia carefully orchestrated with the assistance of three teens.

Esperanza Medina, however, had plenty to say through her daughter about the pain, suffering and the physical reminder of the jealous women's rage etched across her body and face.

Medina, 50, remembered "howling like a hurt animal" and wanting to die from the painful skin grafts her elderly mother nursed her through. Simple tasks such as eating a hamburger, sleeping and showering became insufferable tribulations, Medina's daughter Lissette said, reading from her mother's impact statement that was defiantly signed "ex-victim."

"I felt anger and frustration and just sad because I had so many dreams still to achieve, but they were broken down. I did not want to go out because the way I looked: disfigured," Lissette Medina, 29, said, her voice trembling as she continued with the statement.

"I was not ashamed because I looked different, but because people's stares tell me that I was different and that I did not belong there."

Garcia's attorney Tim Roellig asked Ford to give his client an "appropriate sentence" for the heinous battery charges, noting that she has no prior criminal background and needs a valve in her heart.

Ford acknowledged Garcia's crime-free past, but slapped her with the sentence that was just one year shy of the possible maximum as he pointed to the "cold brutality" and "heartlessness" of the plot.

Ford said Garcia and Olvera-Garcia "victimized" the teens who testified that they were recruited to douse Esperanza Medina in acid, whack her with a baseball bat and steal her purse. The convicted pair, according to prosecutors, were angry their former lover began a romantic relationship with Medina.

In a booming voice, Ford spoke of the disturbing trend of women who knife and throw caustic acid on other women in order to "forever" brand them.

Ford alluded to Medina's courage and said, while the "middle-aged" women's revenge may have physically scarred her, they didn't do a "damn thing to harm" her inside.

"I encourage you to fight," Ford told Medina, who sobbed during the sentencing.

Medina, who vowed to be back in court on Wednesday when Olvera-Garcia is expected be sentenced, said she was glad she could start rebuilding her life.

"I'm not a victim anymore. I'm an ex-victim now," she said, smiling.

A third woman charged in the attack, Linda Dirzo, died while awaiting trial.

Two of the teens involved pleaded guilty to heinous battery. The third teen, who acted as lookout, pleaded guilty to aggravated battery.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2856172,CST-NWS-acid02.article

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Pins or needles found in candy in Schaumburg

November 2, 2010

Pins or needles were found in two candy bars of children trick-or-treating Sunday in Schaumburg, police said.

Police said they believe the objects were inserted into candy after it was manufactured.

Schaumburg police said the tampered candy might have come from an area bordered by Weathersfield Way on the north, Wise Road on the south, Braintree Drive on the east and Springinsguth Road to the west.

No one was injured, but police are cautioning parents to inspect any candy before allowing children to eat it.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2856572,CST-NWS-candy02.article

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Al-Qaida insider gave tip on mail-bomb plot

YEMEN | Saudi Arabia has worked to infiltrate terror group

November 2, 2010

BY AHMED AL-HAJ AND HAMZA HENDAWI

SAN'A, Yemen -- Information that helped thwart the plot of U.S.-bound mail bombs wired to explode on cargo planes came from an al-Qaida insider who was secreted out of Yemen after surrendering to Saudi authorities, Yemeni security officials said Monday.

The tip reflects how Saudi Arabia has worked aggressively for years to infiltrate al-Qaida in Yemen, the unruly, impoverished nation on its southern doorstep in the Arabian Peninsula.

The tip came from Jabir al-Fayfi, a Saudi who was held for years at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007. Soon after, he fled Saudi Arabia and joined the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen until he turned himself in to Saudi authorities in late September.

Yemeni security officials said they believe al-Fayfi may have been a double agent, planted by Saudi Arabia in Yemen among al-Qaida militants in the Arabian Peninsula to uncover their plots. The officials said that after his return to the kingdom, he told authorities al-Qaida was planning to send bomb-laden packages.

Saudi Arabia has been recruiting informants in the terrorist network and also has been paying Yemeni tribal chiefs -- and even gives cash to figures in the Yemeni military -- to gain their loyalty.

President Obama thanked Saudi King Abdullah, a top U.S. ally, in a Saturday telephone call for the ''critical role'' by Saudi counterterrorism authorities in uncovering the plot. After the Saudi alert, two bombs hidden in packages mailed from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago were discovered Friday on planes transiting through Dubai and Britain.

Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, considered a key figure in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, is the chief suspect behind assembling the sophisticated mail bombs, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

German officials said Monday that the mail bombs contained 10.58 ounces and 15.11 ounces of the explosive PETN -- enough to cause ''significant'' damage to the planes.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2856218,CST-NWS-terror02.article

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Ex-Rep. won't talk about relationship with Levy

November 2, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Former California Rep. Gary Condit testified that the media relentlessly pursued him and police refused to believe legitimate alibis once it became clear he had become the primary suspect in the disappearance of Washington intern Chandra Levy.

As he said a decade ago, Condit on Monday told jurors in the trial of the man eventually charged with her murder that he had nothing to do with Levy's disappearance and slaying and insisted he cooperated fully with police.

Still, he continued to evade direct questions about whether he had an intimate relationship with Levy.

"I think we're all entitled to some level of privacy ... It seems like in this country we've lost a sense of decency. I didn't commit any crime; I don't think I've done anything wrong," he said to the prosecutor.

Salvadoran immigrant, Ingmar Guandique, is on trial for Levy's murder and an attempted assault on her in 2001. Prosecutors say Guandique had a history of assaulting female joggers in Rock Creek Park, where Levy's remains were found.

Throughout his testimony, Condit, a Democrat who represented parts of central California, referred to police investigators he believed were hounding him unfairly. He constantly referred to the media attention as a "circus" and said investigators were "out of line" when they demanded to interview his wife.

Condit also became emotional when he described how the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks wiped his name from the headlines. He said there were 100 reporters staking out his apartment that morning. After the planes hit, they were all gone, he said.

At the end of his direct testimony, prosecutor Amanda Haines asked Condit directly: Did you murder Chandra Levy? He responded "No." He also responded "no, ma'am" to the question of whether he had anything to do with her disappearance.

Haines never asked Condit if he and Levy had an affair, but she did ask why he never acknowledged an affair. His voice broke slightly, and he said it was "purely based on principle."

On cross-examination, though, public defender Mario Hawilo put the question to Condit directly: Did you ever have an intimate relationship with Levy?

"I have already stated I'm not going to respond to those questions," Condit said.

Hawilo persisted until Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher told her to move on.

It is Levy's relationship with Condit that vaulted her disappearance into a national sensation nine years ago. Police no longer believe he had anything to do with Levy's death.

Condit testified Monday that he fully cooperated with the investigation, despite his concerns that detectives were "incompetent" and out to get him.

The only question he refused to answer, he said, was when a detective asked in an initial interview if he'd had a sexual relationship with Levy.

Condit said he responded: "If you can tell me why that's relevant, I can answer the question." He said the detective never answered and the interview ended.

Until that interview -- about a week after Levy went missing -- Condit said he never realized he was considered a suspect. He had called D.C. police at the urging of Levy's father to make sure they were taking Levy's disappearance seriously, and he assumed that initial interview with police was to provide him an update on the investigation's status.

Condit testified that he last saw Levy a week before she disappeared and they discussed whether he could help her make some contacts with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies where she hoped to work. Condit told her he would help.

"We never had a fight. We never had any cross words," he said.

Dressed in a blue oxford shirt and a sport coat, Condit's hair has gone completely gray. He described himself as retired.

Taking careful notes on his testimony was Chandra's mother Susan Levy, who has been in the courtroom throughout the trial and was fiercely critical of Condit throughout the investigation.

Prosecutors acknowledged in their opening statement that police failed in the Levy investigation by focusing on Condit to the exclusion of others, allowing Guandique to "hide in plain sight" as investigators failed to link Levy's disappearance with the attacks on the other joggers in Rock Creek Park, even though Levy had looked up information on Rock Creek Park on her laptop right before she disappeared.

Defense attorneys have said the investigation was bungled so badly that it has been impossibly compromised and that Guandique has been made a scapegoat.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2856978,chandra-levy-gary-condit-110210.article

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From the FBI

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Massachusetts Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Burning African-American Church

WASHINGTON—Benjamin Haskell was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor in Springfield, Massachusetts to nine years in prison and three years of supervised release for his role in the 2008 burning of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, a predominately African-American Church, on the morning after President Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American president of the United States. In addition, Haskell will pay more than $1.7 million in restitution, including $123,570.25 to the Macedonia Church.

On June 16, 2010, Haskell, 24, of Springfield, pled guilty to conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate the mostly African-American parishioners of the Macedonia Church in the free exercise of the right to hold and use their new church building, which was under construction, and to damaging the parishioners' new church building through arson and obstructing their free exercise of religion because of their race, color, and ethnic characteristics.

At the earlier plea hearing, a prosecutor told the court that had the case proceeded to trial, the government's evidence would have proven that in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2008, within hours of President Barack Obama being elected, Haskell and his co-conspirators agreed to burn down, and did burn down, the Macedonia Church's newly constructed building where religious services were to be held. The building was 75 percent completed at the time of the fire, which destroyed nearly the entire structure, leaving only the metal superstructure and a small portion of the front corner intact. Investigators determined that the fire was caused by arsonists who poured and ignited gasoline on the interior and exterior of the building.

Haskell confessed to the crime and admitted that prior to the presidential election, he and his co-conspirators used racial slurs against African-Americans and expressed anger at the possible election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president. Haskell admitted that after Obama was declared the winner of the election, he and his co-conspirators walked through the woods behind the Macedonia Church to scout out burning it down. Then, in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2008, Haskell and his co-conspirators went back to the church, poured gasoline inside and outside of the church, and ignited the gasoline.

“The freedom to practice the religion that we choose without discrimination or hateful acts is among our nation's most cherished rights,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. “As seen here today, the Department will prosecute anyone who violates that right to the fullest extent of the law.”

“The burning of the Macedonia Church because of racial hatred and intolerance was a vicious attack on one of our most cherished freedoms—to worship in the religion of our choice safely and without fear of discrimination,” said U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz. “The successful investigation, prosecution, and punishment of those who committed this hateful act is a clear statement that law enforcement will do all in its power to protect our citizens' civil rights.”

“While the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is charged with investigating some of the most violent crimes, I consider the arson to be one of the most serious and dangerous offenses. Not only was this case about the burning of a house of worship, it cut to the very heart of our most valued rights, that of religious freedom. I want to acknowledge all of our partners who assisted in bringing the individuals responsible for this fire to justice,” said ATF Special Agent in Charge Guy Thomas.

“Today's sentencing represents just one more step toward closure and healing, not only for the victims of this hate crime, but for the Springfield community as a whole. The FBI, along with its federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, remains committed to protecting each and every citizen's civil rights, and will aggressively investigate any violation of those rights, bringing the perpetrators to justice,” said Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul H. Smyth and Kevin O'Regan of the U.S. Attorney's Springfield Office, and Nicole Lee Ndumele, Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

http://boston.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/bs110110.htm

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