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From the Los Angeles Times

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Yemen branch of Al Qaeda avoids mistakes made in Iraq, report says

Whereas the group in Iraq has been led by foreigners, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is led by locals. Instead of alienating tribes, the group's Yemeni offshoot is cultivating them, an analyst says.

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times

November 4, 2010

Reporting from Beirut

Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which security officials believe was responsible for last week's attempt to down American-bound aircraft, has managed to avoid the mistakes of its Iraqi counterparts, making it perhaps more resilient than the militant group's other franchises, according to an assessment by an analyst.

Much like the U.S. military, which has had to adapt to fighting in the Muslim world, Al Qaeda has been doing its homework and changing its ways, according to a recent paper by Ryan Evans in the Sentinel, the monthly journal of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

Whereas Al Qaeda in Iraq has been led in the past by foreigners, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is led by locals, Saudis and Yemenis who share a common culture. Although Abu Musab Zarqawi, the late Jordanian mastermind of Al Qaeda's Iraq branch, alienated the tribes, the militant group's Yemeni offshoot is cultivating them.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is also adopting the grievances of locals instead of dismissing their concerns and urging them to fight for a different cause.

All this, says Evans, who works for the U.S. Army's Human Terrain System project, "suggests Al Qaeda's senior leadership may have learned from its failures in Iraq," perhaps adopting what he describes as a "Maoist" approach to mobilizing potential supporters.

Evans' article includes a synopsis of the "plethora of strategic critiques and commentary" regarding Zarqawi's extreme strategy that began to emerge during the height of the Iraqi insurgency.

Zarqawi, who grew up in a rough industrial city in Jordan, did not seek to engage Iraq's rural Sunni Arabs. He didn't trust or respect the locals he led, the article says. Al Qaeda in Iraq upset potential supporters when it began to muscle in on the smuggling trade by Sunnis in the country's west, especially Anbar province, and to impose a harshly puritanical version of Islam on people who had long had their own ways.

Instead of building bridges to Iraqis, Zarqawi launched a campaign of violence against Shiite Muslim civilians.

Zarqawi's elders in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman Zawahiri, voiced alarm, urging him to work with those who didn't hold the same religious views and tone down attacks on civilians lest he lose popular support. Indeed, Iraq's Sunnis began fighting back, making common cause with U.S. forces and the Iraqi government and whittling Al Qaeda in Iraq down to a shadow of its once-formidable force.

"To Mao, the guerrilla is the fish that swims in the sea of the population," Evans writes. "The sea in Anbar had dried up."

Evans suggests that Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen and Saudi Arabia has learned from those mistakes. It seeks not to undermine but to "co-opt existing social and political structures." Its attacks are aimed at security forces and foreigners rather than civilians, advancing "its military campaign only as it perceives that it mobilizes support."

Its leadership is firmly in Yemeni and Saudi hands. In fact, Evans notes, one analyst has concluded that Al Qaeda might be Yemen's "most representative organization," transcending "class, tribe and regional identity in a way that no other Yemeni group or political party can match."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-yemen-qaeda-20101104,0,470434,print.story

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The L.A. County Sheriff's Department releases photos of Leamond and Robyn Turnage, who were found dead in their Hawthorne home Oct. 22. John Wesley Ewell, 53, of Harbor Gateway has been charged with killing them and two others.

Man charged in four killings was known as kind, helpful neighbor Residents of his Harbor Gateway neighborhood are shocked at the allegations that John Wesley Ewell is behind a recent string of burglaries and murders. by Ching-Ching Ni and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times November 4, 2010 On Hoover Street in Harbor Gateway, John Wesley Ewell was the guy neighbors turned to when they needed something fixed in their house. "He's a real nice guy. The kind of guy who would give the shirt off his back," said neighbor Sheila Spinks, who said Ewell recently fixed a light sensor for her. "He didn't want money for it." So when Denice Roberts was killed inside her home on the block last month, Ewell was the last person anyone suspected. But L.A. County prosecutors charged 53-year-old Ewell with killing Roberts and three other people in a series of home robberies over the last month.

Authorities allege that Ewell cased neighborhoods in Hawthorne and Harbor Gateway, pretending to be a utility worker to gain entry to homes. Surveillance tape shows a man carrying a briefcase being let into one of the homes.

Spinks said she and other neighbors can't believe Ewell is responsible. "Everyone is very surprised. His wife is devastated. It is a shock to everybody that knows him. He likes to talk to kids, tell them to stay out of trouble, stay on the right path," she said. "This seems way out of his character."

Ewell, who worked as a repairman with his father, was arrested Oct. 23 in connection with the killing of a couple in Hawthorne during a robbery. Leamon Turnage, 69, and his wife, Robyn, 57, were found strangled in their home Oct. 22. Prosecutors allege that Ewell bound and gagged the couple before taking jewelry and other valuables. Leamon Turnage, a plumber and contractor, was killed in his garage. His wife was found inside the house.

On Wednesday, L.A. County prosecutors charged Ewell with the Sept. 24 killing of Hanna Morcos, 80, in Hawthorne and the Oct. 13 killing of Roberts, 53, two doors down from Ewell's own home. Authorities said they connected him to the crimes in part because he used the Turnages' credit cards to purchase gasoline at a local Shell station. Security tapes from the gas station helped identify him. Deputies also found property from the four victims in his possession, according to prosecutors.

Investigators allege that Ewell forced his way into Morcos' home and took jewelry and other valuables. Morcos, an Egyptian native and retired county employee, had a fatal heart attack while gagged and bound, investigators say. Morcos' wife was asleep in the house at the time of the attack and was not injured.

"My grandfather was … determined to see the good in people," Diana Seif said at a news conference with Sheriff Lee Baca after the killing. "He was very much like a candle in a dark room."

The day after the news conference, Ewell allegedly killed the Turnages.

The series of killings has residents on Hoover Street stunned.

Like the other victims, Roberts was bound and gagged before being strangled. Authorities said they don't know if Ewell and Roberts knew each other. But neighbors suspect they were at least friendly because the neighborhood is fairly tight-knit.

Spinks said she can't understand why someone would hurt Roberts.

"She's a person who didn't go nowhere, didn't bother nobody. All she did was go to church every Sunday and stay in the house," she said.

Ewell is described by sheriff's detectives as a career criminal who since the 1980s has been convicted of robbery, burglary and grand theft. He was charged in September, before the killings, with felony second-degree burglary from a Hawthorne Home Depot store.

He had apparently lived on Hoover Street for five years.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-11-04-home-murders-20101104,0,7215880,print.story

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A U.S. customs agent crawls through an 1,800-foot-long tunnel linking drug warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana. Officials estimate a Mexican cartel had been smuggling marijuana through the tunnel for about a month.

San Diego-to-Tijuana drug tunnel uncovered; 25 tons of pot seized U.S. officials raid a San Diego-area warehouse and find a lighted, ventilated passageway 4 feet high and 1,800 feet long crossing into Mexico. Drugs were found in warehouses on both sides of the border. by Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times November 4, 2010 San Diego - Federal authorities discovered a tunnel linking drug warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana that led to the seizure of more than 25 tons of marijuana, one of the largest-ever drug seizures in San Diego, officials said. The 1,800-foot transnational passageway — roughly equivalent to six football fields in length — isn't the longest or the most sophisticated ever built, but it is one of the few instances in which authorities were able to seize drugs on both sides of the border. The scale of the operation pointed to the work of a major Mexican drug cartel, authorities said, and comes two weeks after Mexican authorities discovered a record 134 tons of marijuana in an industrial area near Tijuana.

Officials don't know if there is a connection between the two events, but called this week's discovery another significant blow against organized crime groups.

Authorities estimated the drugs' worth at more than $20 million.

"I can promise you there are some very unhappy people in the cartel," said John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which leads the multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force.

The investigation was triggered Tuesday afternoon when task force agents patrolling the light industrial area near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry followed a tractor trailer that was acting suspiciously, Morton said.

The truck was stopped at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Temecula, where agents found about 10 tons of marijuana stuffed in the 53-foot trailer. Two people in the truck, a husband and wife whose identities were not disclosed, were arrested. Agents later raided the warehouse from which the vehicle had departed and discovered another 10 to 15 tons of dope, the bales wrapped in cellophane and on pallets, as if ready for shipping.

Inside a storage closet they found a 3-foot by 4-foot tunnel opening cut into the subfloor. The passageway, featuring lighting, ventilation and a rail system, descends about 20 feet below ground and goes under Via de la Amistadand another warehouse before continuing under the border fence into Mexico.

Mexican soldiers on Wednesday raided a warehouse south of the border and found about 4 tons of marijuana, according to the Mexican military. U.S. authorities wouldn't disclose how the Mexican entry point was found, but agents in past cases have located openings by traversing the entire length of the tunnel.

In this case, such a crossing would have been extremely difficult. Officials said the tunnel was only 4 feet high by 3 feet wide. The toil and financing required for such an undertaking was further evidence that above-ground enforcement efforts are forcing cartels to extreme measures to get their drugs across the border, officials said.

The tunnel is one of the few unearthed in recent years that was fully operational. Authorities estimate operators had been smuggling drugs through it for less than one month. About 75 tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border have been unearthed in the last four years, most of them in various states of construction.

The operation was also notable because of the quick response by Mexican authorities. In past cases, their less-than-prompt actions have allowed tunnel operators in Mexico to clear out the drugs. This time they reacted immediately, which authorities said reflects the much-improved levels of cooperation from security forces in Tijuana, which are led by army Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mugica.

"The Mexicans moved as quickly as we did," Morton said. "It was an example of the coordination needed to be successful."

There were no arrests in either warehouse, and it's unclear who owned the drugs or whether the owners of the facilities were involved. The investigation is ongoing, authorities said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1104-drug-tunnel-20101104,0,3413639,print.story

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Domestic violence: a global problem, not a religious one

Citing women's safety, two states may ban Sharia law. But according to a U.N. report, violence against women cuts across nationalities and faiths.

By John L. Esposito and Sheila B. Lalwani

October 31, 2010

An Oct. 28 Times editorial hit the nail on the head by noting that the United Nations' newly released report, "The World's Women," makes a disturbing point: Violence against women remains a stubborn problem around the world.

The reminder is timely. Voters in Oklahoma and Louisiana will decide Tuesday on ballot initiatives that would prevent Sharia law from entering the court systems; protecting women's rights is cited as a reason, because Islamic law is believed to sanction such violence. It remains to be seen what voters will decide on Tuesday, but connecting violence against women to any religion sidesteps the real issue and primary causes of violence against women, allowing this pressing global health issue to escape the scrutiny and response it merits.

Violence against women cuts across nationalities, races and religions. The United Nations report provides a comprehensive study on girls and women; it underscores the connection between advancement and education, noting that women who go to school are more likely to lead successful and healthy lives to the benefit of society. Conversely, girls and women who are less educated or illiterate are more vulnerable.

Examples abound. In India several years ago, a woman sought the services of a social welfare organization in New Delhi because her husband was abusing her (one of the writers of this piece, Sheila B. Lalwani, handled her case). She knew her spouse was treating her wrongly, but she was also painfully aware that she had no money or support from her family. She came into the center to learn more about her legal rights and options. She was Hindu, and after counseling her, the caseworkers assisted Muslim and Sikh women who needed help. Few abused women actually pursue divorces; they often return to their husbands, and, in many cases, the women are beaten to death.

This example speaks to another reality: In many regions of the world, women are still expected to endure violence. This has more to do with culture and traditional values than religion. According to the United Nations report, women often find abuse justifiable. In one section of the report that looked at 33 countries, a sizable portion of women said violence is justified in some cases.

The report makes clear that the prevalence of violence against women varies among regions, and that women are subjected to different forms of violence — physical, sexual, psychological and economic — in and out of their homes. According to the study, the proportion of women exposed to physical violence at least once in their lifetime ranged from 12% in China to about 50% in Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic and 59% in Peru. Intimate partners are most likely to be the culprits, according to the study.

Few know the global scope of this problem because of slanted and politically motivated campaigns. Consider the campaign that conservative blogger Pamela Geller waged in Chicago earlier this year that drew a link between so-called honor killings and Islam. She failed to note that some of those who carried out such killings were Hindu.

Perhaps it is easier to believe that gender-based violence is a problem that affects women only in certain parts of the world when it exists in our society too. In fact, President Obama, as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, pledged to do more to help victims of abuse.

The moment is ripe to replace complacency with vigilance. This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls on member nations to protect women and girls in conflict. Sexual violence is often used as a tactic in warfare, but victims are hesitant to come forward for fear of social alienation and abandonment. During the conflict in the Balkans, for example, thousands of women became victims of mass rape. Many of those women ended up committing suicide, and many continue to struggle psychologically. Resolution 1325 calls for the inclusion of women in conflict resolution and peace building.

Violence against women is a global phenomenon, not a religious one. Nevertheless, it deserves the attention of every religious leader and responsible voter; anything less contributes to the denial and complacency that permits it to persist.

John L. Esposito, the author of "The Future of Islam," is University Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown University and founding director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Sheila B. Lalwani is a research fellow at the center and former Cultural Bridge Fellow with Harvard's Women and Public Policy Program.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-esposito-lalwani-women-violenc20101031,0,2947796,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Yemen's Drive on Al Qaeda Faces Internal Skepticism

SANA, Yemen — As Yemen intensifies its military campaign against Al Qaeda 's regional arm, it faces a serious obstacle: most Yemenis consider the group a myth, or a ploy by their president to squeeze the West for aid money and punish his domestic opponents.

Those cynical attitudes — rooted in Yemen's history of manipulative politics — complicate any effort to track down the perpetrators of the recent plot to send explosives by courier to the United States. They also make it harder to win public support for the fight against jihadist violence, whatever label one attaches to it.

“What is Al Qaeda? The truth is there is no Al Qaeda,” said Lutfi Muhammad, a weary-looking unemployed 50-year-old walking through this city's tumultuous Tahrir Square. Instead, he said, the violence is “because of the regime and the lack of stability and the internal struggles.”

That view, echoed across Yemen, is only partly a conspiracy theory. The Yemeni government has used jihadists as proxy soldiers in the past, and sometimes conflates the Qaeda threat and the unrelated political insurgencies it has fought in northern and southern Yemen in recent years. In a country where political and tribal violence is endemic, it is often impossible to tell who is killing whom, and why.

One thing is clear: Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh , has stepped up his commitment to fighting Al Qaeda in the past year, with far more military raids and airstrikes, including some carried out by the American military. His government has paid a price. On Saturday, a day after the discovery of the air freight bomb plot, Mr. Saleh said during a news conference that Al Qaeda had killed 70 police officers and soldiers in the past four weeks. That is a sharp increase over previous years, and some analysts have taken it as proof that Al Qaeda's Yemen-based branch is growing.

But many Yemenis seem doubtful that Al Qaeda was guilty in all or even most of those killings, which took place in the same southern parts of the country where a secessionist movement has been growing for the past three years.

“We cannot differentiate between what is propaganda and what is real,” said Abdullah al-Faqih, a professor of political science at Sana University. “It's impossible to tell who is killing who; you have tribal feuds, Al Qaeda and the Southern Movement, and the state is doing a lot of manipulation.”

In a sense, there are two narratives about Al Qaeda in Yemen. One of them, presented by both the Yemeni government and Al Qaeda's Internet postings — and echoed in the West — portrays a black-and-white struggle between the groups. The other narrative is the view from the ground in Yemen: a confusing welter of attacks by armed groups with shifting loyalties, some fighting under political or religious banners, some merely looking for money.

The Yemeni authorities have long paid tribal leaders to fight domestic enemies, or even other tribes that were causing trouble for the government. That policy has helped foster a culture of blackmail: some tribal figures promote violence, whether through jihadists or mere criminals, and then offer to quell it in exchange for cash.

“Some of what looks like Al Qaeda is really terror as a business,” Mr. Faqih said.

Yemen's tribes are often cast as the chief obstacle in the fight against Al Qaeda, sheltering the militants because of tribal hospitality or even ideological kinship. In fact, few tribal leaders have any sympathy for the group, and some tribes have forced Qaeda members to leave their areas in the past year.

In a statement released Tuesday, a group identifying itself as Al Qaeda members from the Awlaq tribe — one of Yemen's largest — pleaded with their fellow tribesmen for support, noting that “we were deeply saddened to see the leaders, chiefs, and dignitaries of our community go personally to meet with the government envoy.”

Instead, Al Qaeda seems to thrive where tribal authority has eroded, or in the southern areas where hatred of the government is most intense. In many of the recent attacks, it is difficult to draw a line between Al Qaeda and angry, impoverished young men who have easy access to weapons.

This is particularly true of the secessionist movement in the south. “There are many unemployed young men and people with personal interests who rebelled against the state and against the movement itself,” said Saleh al-Hanashi, an adviser to the governor of Abyan, a southern province where the protest movement thrives and many of the recent killings have taken place. “They became these chaos-inciting groups. And these groups now in Abyan shoot at cars belonging to the state and do other destructive acts against the state.” This kind of vandalism is easily attributed to Al Qaeda, whether the group claims responsibility for it or not. The latest issue of the group's English-language magazine, Inspire, features a banner headline on the front cover: “Photos From the Operations of Abyan.” Inside, there are gruesome pictures of burning Jeeps and dead Yemeni soldiers.

Many southerners view Mr. Saleh's government as an occupying force, and while the secessionist movement's leaders say they reject violence, some of its members may be willing to make common cause with jihadists. North and south Yemen, once separate countries, unified in 1990, then fought a bitter civil war four years later. Many in the south say they have been treated unequally ever since.

It is possible that the worsening carnage in southern Yemen, and Al Qaeda's claims of responsibility for it, will eventually lead to a shift in perceptions and broader support for the government's agenda. That is what happened in Saudi Arabia, where attitudes toward Al Qaeda were similar to those in Yemen until the group began carrying out bloody attacks in Saudi cities in 2003. Public opinion soon swung sharply against the jihadists, and by 2006 the Saudis had crushed the group.

That is far less likely in Yemen, with its terrible poverty and weak central government. For now, most Yemenis seem to dismiss reports of Al Qaeda killings as a “masrah,” or drama, staged by the government and its American backers. The suspicion runs so deep that any action by the Yemeni government seems to confirm it: counterterrorist raids are often described as punitive measures against domestic foes, and the failure to act decisively is derided as collusion.

“This latest episode with the packages is only making it worse,” said Mr. Faqih, the Sana University professor. “Many people think it was all about the elections in the U.S., or an excuse for American military intervention here.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/middleeast/04yemen.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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YouTube Withdraws Cleric's Videos

LONDON — Under pressure from American and British officials, YouTube on Wednesday removed from its site some of the hundreds of videos featuring calls to jihad by Anwar al-Awlaki , an American-born, Yemen -based cleric who has played an increasingly public role in inspiring violence directed at the West.

Last week, a British official pressed for the videos to be removed and a New York congressman, Anthony Weiner , sent YouTube a letter listing hundreds of videos featuring the cleric. The requests took on greater urgency after two powerful bombs hidden in cargo planes were intercepted en route from Yemen to Chicago on Friday, with the prime suspect being the Yemen-based group Mr. Awlaki is affiliated with, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula .

In an e-mail, Victoria Grand, a YouTube spokeswoman, said that the site had removed videos that violated the site's guidelines prohibiting “dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech, and incitement to commit violent acts,” or came from accounts “registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization,” or used to promote such a group's interests.

Ms. Grand said that Google, YouTube's owner, sought to balance freedom of expression with averting calls to violence. “These are difficult issues,” she wrote, “and material that is brought to our attention is reviewed carefully. We will continue to remove all content that incites violence according to our policies. Material of a purely religious nature will remain on the site.”

In an interview, Mr. Weiner said that YouTube gave him a “bureaucratic” response at first, but seemed to take his request more seriously after the bombs were found. “It has become increasingly clear that this guy is an international terrorist that is using their service to do illegal things,” he said.

Britain's concern over Mr. Awlaki and his group rose sharply on Wednesday with two developments. A young woman who had embraced his cause and watched dozens of hours of his videos was sentenced to life in prison for the attempted murder in May of a prominent legislator, and a top official in the government of Prime Minister David Cameron announced that a member of the Yemeni Qaeda group had been arrested earlier in the year in a previously undisclosed bombing plot against the country.

Britain's security agencies have wrestled with dozens of terrorist plots in recent years, successfully foiling most but suffering deeply from the attack on the London transit system in July 2005, which left 56 people, including four suicide bombers, dead.

In recent months, top security officials here have issued a series of warnings, saying that an increasingly dire threat came from groups inspired by Osama bin Laden based in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

Jonathan Evans, chief of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5, said recently that Mr. Awlaki and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were “of particular concern” in the light of their role in the attempted bombing on Dec. 25 of an American trans-Atlantic airliner approaching Detroit, and “because he preaches and teaches in the English language, which makes his message easier to access and understand for Western audiences.”

Scotland Yard detectives who investigated the attack on the legislator said outside the court that 21-year-old Roshonara Choudhury, a theology student, watched YouTube videos that showed sequences from sermons by Mr. Awlaki in Yemen in which the preacher urged Muslims everywhere to join in a worldwide holy war against the West. In a transcript of her interrogation published by The Guardian, she spoke of watching hundreds of hours of his videos. She said her motive was to “punish” the legislator, Stephen Timms, for voting in 2003 for Britain's participation in the invasion of Iraq.

Her lawyer told the court that Ms. Choudhury, whose parents immigrated to England from Bangladesh, had been a Muslim moderate “of exemplary character” with no links to terrorist groups until she began browsing militant Muslim Web sites.

When she attacked, as Mr. Timms met with constituents at his office in a London suburb, she was wearing a black floor-length gown and a head covering that revealed only her eyes. She pulled out a knife and stabbed him twice in the abdomen.

Ms. Choudhury refused to attend the trial, saying she did not recognize the legitimacy of the British court system. But she appeared by video link from a prison in London for Wednesday's sentencing, when the judge, Sir Jeremy Cooke, said that she would have to serve a minimum of 15 years before applying for parole. He described Ms. Choudhury as “an intelligent young woman who has absorbed immoral ideas and wrong patterns of thinking,” and added: “You do not suffer from any mental disease. You have simply committed evil acts coolly and deliberately.”

YouTube has faced other periods of pressure to remove videos linked to radical Islamists. Jeffrey Rosen , a professor of law at George Washington University who has written extensively about YouTube's policies, including in The New York Times Magazine, said that in 2007, the Labour Government in Britain called on YouTube to block terrorist recruitment videos featuring Islamic fighters with guns and rockets.

Last May, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman 's staff asked Google to remove about 120 terrorist recruitment videos from YouTube. Google removed some videos that showed gratuitous violence or hate speech, but refused to take down others.

“YouTube and Google deserve credit for trying to distinguish videos that are merely offensive from those that show graphic violence or hate speech or risk inciting imminent violence, which is the line American courts have drawn in free speech cases since the 1960s,” Professor Rosen said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/04britain.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Colombia Suspends 7 in Military After Children's Killings

CARACAS, Venezuela — Colombia 's army has suspended seven officers and soldiers for failing to control their troops in connection with the brutal murders last month of three impoverished children near Colombia's northeast border with Venezuela.

The killings have stirred outrage among human rights groups in Colombia. Medical examiners determined that one of the children, Yenni Torres, 14, was raped before she was killed. Her body and those of her brothers, Jimmy, 9, and Jefferson, 6, were found on Oct. 14 in a shallow grave near the town of Tame in rural Arauca, a war-torn border region.

One of the suspended officers, Second Lt. Raúl Muñoz, has acknowledged raping Yenni Torres before she was killed, Gen. Alejandro Navas, commander of the army, said Wednesday on Caracol Radio. General Navas said Lieutenant Muñoz had also confessed to having raped a 13-year-old girl in a separate episode near Tame on Oct. 2.

But Lieutenant Muñoz asserted that he was not involved in killing the three Torres children, General Navas said. The authorities in Arauca arrested Lieutenant Muñoz on Wednesday.

The connection of the other suspended men to the killings remains unclear, aside from the supervisory roles they had in the area. In addition to Lieutenant Muñoz, two colonels, a major and three noncommissioned officers were suspended.

The suspensions, which were announced Tuesday night by the army's high command, raised new questions about abuses by Colombia's armed forces, which are a major recipient of security assistance and training from the United States. Despite the Colombian military's recent strides against rebel groups, its reputation remains tarnished by a 2008 scandal in which soldiers killed civilians, then classified the victims as subversives to inflate statistics about the number of rebels killed in combat.

Sandra Lorena, a human rights official in Arauca, said of the murders of the three children, “These killings have left us perplexed.”

On Oct. 14, residents of the village of Temblador, near Tame, found the children buried together. Their father, José Torres, 49, a farm worker, had reported them missing the day before. With the help of Red Cross officials, Mr. Torres himself took part in recovering their bodies. All three children had wounds from a sharp object in their necks and heads.

Mystery still shrouds the killings, though some of the details that have emerged have shocked some in Colombia, a country that has grown somewhat numbed to atrocities during decades of war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia , or FARC.

Tame and surrounding areas rank among Colombia's most dangerous. A bomb placed on a bicycle was detonated in Tame by remote control in mid-October, wounding four soldiers and three civilians. Earlier in October, the army killed two midlevel FARC commanders near Tame.

A unit of the Colombian Army's Mobile Brigade No. 5 was camped several hundred feet from the site of the Torres children's grave around the time when the three were killed. Investigators think that whoever killed them and dug the grave needed tight control of the area, according to a report by Semana, a Colombian news magazine.

The Colombian authorities said that an inquiry was continuing and that it involved DNA samples from the children and 60 soldiers from Mobile Brigade No. 5.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/americas/04colombia.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Mexico: U.S. Student Is Shot To Death

A United States student has been shot and killed in Ciudad Juárez, officials said Wednesday, making him the fifth American to be killed in the city since Friday. The student, Eder Diaz, who attended the University of Texas at El Paso, and a classmate from Mexico were killed Tuesday, the United States Consulate in Ciudad Juárez said. A Mexican investigator identified the classmate as Manuel Acosta. All of the Americans were from El Paso, which is across the border from Ciudad Juárez.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/americas/04briefs-mexicobf.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Italy: Police Strike at Crime Families

The police seized assets worth $561 million and arrested 47 people, including Sicilian businessmen, politicians and public officials, in an overnight anti-Mafia raid on Wednesday in Sicily and in several other regions, including Lazio, Tuscany, Emilia Romagna and Friuli Venezia Giulia. The arrests were based on four years of investigations into three Mafia families in the Catania area, in eastern Sicily, a police statement said. Separately, the police arrested 50 people accused of having links to the Camorra, a Naples-area crime group, including four municipal police officers, and seized $84 million in assets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/world/europe/04briefs-Italy.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Solemn End to Trial for '98 Attacks

Their names were not read aloud, but the impact was there. Page after page of them were shown on courtroom monitors, carrying the names of the hundreds of people who died in the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa. Jurors, seeing the names go by, appeared riveted and solemn in the quiet courtroom.

And with that, the government rested its case on Wednesday in the first civilian trial of a former Guantánamo detainee. Not long after, the defense rested without calling the former detainee, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani , or any other witness.

The trial of Mr. Ghailani, moved faster than expected. The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said that closing arguments would begin on Monday, and that the jury could get the case and begin deliberations by midweek.

The trial has been seen as a kind of test run of the Obama administration's stated goal of trying other detainees, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , the professed plotter of the 9/11 attacks, in a civilian court.

Like other so-called high-value detainees, Mr. Ghailani, 36, was held in secret overseas jails run by the Central Intelligence Agency, where his lawyers say he was tortured, and in the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before he was moved into the civilian system last year.

But as testimony in the case wrapped up on Wednesday, about four weeks after it began, the jury had learned nothing of his treatment during his nearly five years of detention.

Rather, prosecutors presented a largely straightforward criminal case, involving attacks that they said had been orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and carried out by his operatives, including Mr. Ghailani.

With the courtroom filled with spectators, among them some of the victims' relatives, the trial reached an emotional high point on Wednesday, as the victims' names were shown.

“There's names, there's ages, and there's genders,” the prosecutor, Michael Farbiarz, told the jury as he instructed an aide to display the lists of victims, page after page.

“Go to the next page, please,” Mr. Farbiarz said, pausing as each list appeared.

“And the next page,” he said, repeating it over and over until he had accounted for all 224 people who were killed in the attacks on the embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Prosecutors maintained that Mr. Ghailani, a Tanzanian, was a member of a conspiracy led by Mr. bin Laden who assisted in the bombing of the embassy in Dar es Salaam, which killed 11 people and wounded scores of others.

On Monday, for example, a former F.B.I. agent testified that while searching an armoire at Mr. Ghailani's residence in Dar es Salaam a few weeks after the attacks, he found a white wire that led to a blasting cap.

“I pulled it out, and I immediately saw what it was, and I got rid of it,” the former agent, Gerald Bamel, said.

While the defense called no witnesses, one of Mr. Ghailani's lawyers, Peter E. Quijano, read the jury a statement of undisputed evidence, known as a stipulation. It indicated that days before the ex-F.B.I. agent executed the search, an earlier search found no blasting cap.

Mr. Ghailani's lawyers have not denied that their client carried out certain tasks, but they maintain he was duped and was not aware that he was helping prepare for the embassy attacks.

For example, prosecutors have said Mr. Ghailani's cellphone was repeatedly used before the bombings to call a compound in Nairobi that was used by other conspirators.

Mr. Quijano read a stipulation to the jury that said another man had bought the phone and specifically asked that it be placed in Mr. Ghailani's name.

Lawyers for Mr. Ghailani have made clear in their cross-examinations and in stipulations that they intend to attack the credibility of certain government witnesses and cite evidence to support their contention that Mr. Ghailani did not know what the plotters were up to.

On Wednesday, prosecutors also quietly introduced a copy of a thick terrorist training manual that the authorities seized 10 years ago at the residence of a Qaeda operative in England. The document, introduced first in the 2001 embassy bombings trial, even advises on “blasting and destroying the embassies.” Prosecutors may argue that the attackers followed the manual closely; the defense might cite a section that instructs operatives to keep secrets “even with the closest people” — to argue that their client was kept in the dark as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/nyregion/04ghailani.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Washington Examiner

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Profilers: Military shooter could raise the stakes

Washington-area criminal profilers said it doesn't appear that the person shooting at military buildings wants to hurt anyone -- but that could change.

Experts said publicly belittling the shooter could provoke the person into taking his anger out on people, like in the D.C. sniper case. Or the shooter is preparing for something more dangerous. This case seems a little different, experts said.

"It looks to me that he's doesn't want to cause any loss of life," said criminal profiler Pat Brown, author of "The Profiler." "You wonder what he's going to accomplish, picking at things little by little."

FBI officials said on Wednesday that the gun used to shoot at a Coast Guard recruiting station in Woodbridge earlier this week is the same weapon used in the first four shootings in Northern Virginia. Authorities have not released the type or caliber of the weapon, but investigators previously said it appeared that the shots were fired from a high-powered rifle.

Clearly the person is targeting military icons, but it's too early to say whether the shooter has a grievance with the Marine Corps, a theory posited by FBI officials last week, criminal profilers said.

Former FBI criminal profiler Gregg McCrary said a more telling clue might be geography. The targets all have been in Northern Virginia, in places that the shooter feels comfortable. The Pentagon and the Nation Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle are symbolic icons, but the Marine Corps recruiting station in Chantilly isn't well-known.

"That little place in Chantilly -- we're probably going to find some significance to the area," he said.

The fact that the shooter is using the same weapon and not varying his types of targets seems to indicate that he's making a statement and wants the credit.

"It gives him some sense of entitlement," McCrary said.

Brown said the shooter could be doing it because he thinks it's fun, or it might be a political angle or he might be getting a kick reading about his crimes in the newspaper. She tends to think it's a younger person who hasn't shown a long history of violence.

"He's not trying to raise the fear level, not getting that thrill of seeing people running out of buildings in fear," Brown said. But it's possible that he might get bored with buildings and might want to attempt something bigger and more dangerous. Or he might be growing comfortable and preparing for something more challenging.

"Will he keep going? We don't know," Brown said. "Sometimes the person gets freaked out that they're going to get caught and suddenly stop and we wonder, 'Who was that guy?' "

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Profilers_-Military-shooter-could-raise-the-stakes-1438966-106644888.html

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From the Department of Homeland Security

Readout of Secretary Napolitano's Calls with Shipping and Airline Industry Leaders

Secretary Janet Napolitano today spoke with leaders from global shipping companies, including UPS, DHL, FedEx and TNT, to discuss enhanced air cargo screening and security efforts following last week's disrupted attempt to conceal and ship explosive devices onboard aircraft bound for the United States.

During the call, Secretary Napolitano underscored her commitment to partnering with the shipping industry to strengthen cargo security through enhanced screening and preventative measures, including terrorism awareness training for personnel. Together, UPS, DHL, FedEx and TNT employ more than one million employees in hundreds of countries around the world.

Following her call with shipping industry leaders, Secretary Napolitano spoke with International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General Giovanni Bisignani about the Department's continued collaboration with our private sector partners and international allies to secure the global supply chain through a layered security approach to identify, deter and disrupt threats. She also reiterated her commitment to ongoing coordination with the airline and shipping industries to uphold TSA security standards, including the vetting of personnel with access to cargo, employee training, and cargo screening procedures.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1288810245939.shtm

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From the Department of Justice

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Maryland Man Sentenced for Sending Threatening Email to Illinois Mosque

WASHINGTON – Ilya Sobolevskiy, a 25-year-old resident of Maryland, was sentenced today to serve 12 months in prison and to pay a $3,000 fine for violating the civil rights of members of an Urbana, Ill., mosque, announced the Justice Department.

During a guilty plea hearing in August 2010, Sobolevskiy admitted that he sent an email to a member of the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center (CIMIC), in which he threatened, among other things, that he would “do WHATEVER it takes to eradicate Islam.” Officials at CIMIC reported the threat to the FBI, which referred the case to the department's Civil Rights Division.

“One of our most basic rights is the freedom to practice one's faith in peace,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez of the Civil Rights Division. “We have no tolerance for threats of violence fueled by bigotry, and we will aggressively prosecute such actions.”

“It is a top priority of the FBI to protect the civil rights of the American people. We encourage members of the community to report all allegations of civil rights violations. The FBI will aggressively investigate these matters to ensure that our society remains free,” said Stuart R. McArthur, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Springfield Office.

Federal Magistrate Judge David G. Bernthal, referring to the defendant's crime as “an act of terror,” gave the defendant the maximum sentence permitted by law.

This case was investigated by the Springfield, Ill., division of the FBI, and was prosecuted by department Trial Attorney Patricia Sumner.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/November/10-crt-1249.html

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Baltimore Police Department Officer Sentenced to Five Years in Prison

WASHINGTON – A federal judge in Baltimore today sentenced a former Baltimore Police Department officer to serve five years in prison for violating the civil rights of a juvenile arrestee, the Justice Department announced today. Gregory Mussmacher was convicted by a jury in May 2010 for physically abusing a juvenile in his custody and for obstructing justice to cover up what he had done.

The abuse incident occurred in April 2004, when the defendant used his police-issued baton to strike a handcuffed and shackled juvenile in the head and face. Following the incident in 2004, Mussmacher was tried for assault and was convicted in state court. However, that conviction was later reversed, and federal authorities assumed responsibility for the case. Prosecutors with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice conducted an independent investigation of the matter and brought charges against three officers, including Mussmacher, for civil rights and obstruction violations. The other two officers, Guy Gerstel and Wayne Thompson, pleaded guilty before trial and testified against Mussmacher.

“The power that accompanies a police officer's badge does not give the officer the right to violate the civil rights of those in his or her custody,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil rights Division. “The Justice Department will aggressively prosecute any officer who abuses their power and violates the public trust in this way.”

“Any police officer who abuses a suspect, writes false reports and obstructs justice must be held accountable,” said Rod J. Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.  “This case is an embarrassment to the many officers who earn our confidence by performing their duties with honor and integrity.”

Gerstel, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the investigation, will be sentenced on Nov. 18, 2010. Thompson, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obstruction charge, was sentenced on Sept. 30, 2010, to serve 6 months of home detention.

This case was investigated by the Baltimore Division of the FBI, and was prosecuted by Civil Rights Division Attorneys Forrest Christian, Jeff Blumberg and Kevonne Small, with the support of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/November/10-crt-1247.html

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From ICE

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ICE deports accused murderer to Mexico

BIG SPRING, Texas - A man who was wanted in Mexico for allegedly killing a man in 2004 was deported on Wednesday by agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

Jose Pilar Carrillo-Aguirre, 45, a Mexican national, was turned over to Mexican authorities at 1 p.m. on Nov. 3 at the Del Rio, Texas, port of entry. The Mexican Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) took custody of Carrillo-Aguirre, who was wanted for homicide in the State of Michoacán, Mexico. According to Mexican authorities, Carillo-Aguirre is accused of assaulting Jorge Luviano-Valenzuela L. Campo, and shooting him in the chest and forearm, resulting in his death.

The Public Minister in Huetamo, Michoacán, Mexico, issued an arrest warrant in March 2006 charging Carrillo-Aguirre with homicide.

"ICE works closely with our local, state, federal and international law enforcement partners to identify, locate and deport aliens who are wanted in their home countries for committing heinous crimes," said Nuria T. Prendes, field office director of the ICE ERO in Dallas. "We will not allow fugitive criminal aliens to use the United States as a safe haven from their crimes." Prendes oversees 128 counties in north Texas and the State of Oklahoma.

Carrillo-Aguirre was processed as a convicted criminal alien and deported in February 2003 via the El Paso, Texas, port of entry. However, Carrillo-Aguirre was again encountered after he had illegally re-entered the United States on March 15, 2006 at or near Laredo, Texas. Anyone who re-enters the United States after having been formally deported commits a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

On Sept. 5, 2008 Carrillo-Aguirre was convicted in the U.S. District Court Western District of Texas for illegally re-entering the United States. He was sentenced to 36 months in prison.

On Sept. 2, 2010, ICE agents encountered Carrillo-Aguirre while he was serving his sentence for illegally re-entering the United States at the Dalby Federal Correctional Facility in Post, Texas. It was then determined that Carrillo-Aguirre had the outstanding homicide warrant from Mexico.

ICE deported almost 393,000 aliens in fiscal year 2010, which ended Sept. 30. Of those, more than 195,000 were aliens with criminal convictions. In the ICE Dallas area of responsibility, more than 16,000 aliens were deported or returned; of those, more than 8,300 - or more than 51 percent - were aliens with criminal convictions.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1011/101103bigspring.htm

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South Texas deputy arrested for gun smuggling and bribery

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - A Cameron County Sheriff's deputy was arrested on Monday on charges related to bribery and smuggling goods from the U.S. These charges were announced by U.S. Attorney José Angel Moreno. The investigation is led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with the assistance of the FBI and the Cameron County Sheriff's Office.

Jesus Longoria, 31, of Brownsville, was arrested Nov. 1, pursuant to a federal arrest warrant which was issued after a complaint under seal was filed.

The complaint was unsealed Tuesday during Longoria's initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Morgan. Longoria will remain in federal custody pending a preliminary examination and detention hearing scheduled for Nov. 4 when his bond will be decided.

According to the criminal complaint, Longoria allegedly accepted payments from an undercover federal agent to allow firearms to pass through a federal inspection station.

Local law enforcement officers work alongside federal authorities at the Ports of Entry in an effort to prevent contraband and stolen goods from being smuggled into Mexico. As such, Longoria was assigned to the Veterans' and Gateway Ports of Entry to prevent stolen vehicles from leaving the United States. Longoria allegedly allowed vehicles that he knew to contain firearms to pass through his vehicle checkpoint on three occasions between March 12 and May 5, 2010, in exchange for money. The vehicles were intercepted before entering into Mexico and the weapons recovered.

Bribery of a public official carries a maximum penalty of $250,000 and 15 years imprisonment and may disqualify a person from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States. Smuggling goods from the United States carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hagen, Southern District of Texas, is prosecuting the case.

A criminal complaint is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence. A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1011/101102brownsville.htm

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