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From the Los Angeles Times

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YEMEN: Airstrike kills terrorist Awlaki, military says

Details of the attack on Awlaki were sparse, but news of his death came as Washington was providing intelligence and predator drones to the Yemeni army to defeat Al Qaeda operatives in the country's rugged mountains. Yemen media reported that Awlaki was targeted in an airstrike in the Marib region of northern Yemen.

Yemen authorities in the past have falsely announced the killing of top members in the country's Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. If the reports on Awlaki are true, his death would be a significant setback to Islamic militant networks that in recent months have exploited Yemen's political chaos to take over villages and towns.

“The terrorist Anwar Awlaki has been killed along with some of his companions,” read a text message released to journalists by the Defense Ministry.

The death would be the latest in a series of military operations worldwide that have targeted Al Qaeda leaders, including the killing of Osma bin Laden in Pakistan by U.S. forces in May. The pressure on the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen has intensified as the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have sought to contain several hundred militants, most from Yemen and Saudi Arabia, from launching cross-border attacks.

Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and spoke fluent English, became an Internet phenomenon by producing video and audio recordings to lure Westerners into extremist ideologies. Awlaki was implicated in attempts to blow up U.S. airliners, including the botched plot by a Nigerian man to detonate explosives in his underwear in 2009. That same year the cleric was blamed for inspiring U.S. Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to allegedly kill 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas.

The White House had placed Awlaki on the CIA's assassination list. Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told a congressional hearing this year: "I actually consider Al Qaeda in the Arab peninsula with Awlaki as a leader within that organization as probably the most significant threat to the U.S."

Washington and Western countries have grown fearful that Yemen, which is engulfed in massive anti-government protests and tribal fighting, would allow Al Qaeda to strengthen its hold at the intersection of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Awlaki's death would likely improve Yemen President Ali Abdullah's standing as an American ally and help him gain international support to hang onto power as his country teeters close to civil war.

Yemen is the Arab world's poorest nation and Saleh, who survived an assassination attempt in June, has been unable to calm protests against him. His forces in recent weeks have been stretched by putting down a popular rebellion and battling Al Qaeda militants who have stormed police stations and government buildings.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/09/yemen-airstrike-kills-terrorist-awlaki-military-says.html

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MEXICO: Does U.S. deportation program put migrants in harm's way?

REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- In an effort to further discourage illegal crossers, the United States says it has found success in the practice of transferring illegal immigrants and deporting them at a border crossing far from where they initially entered the United States, The Times reports.

But does the practice place undocumented migrants in harm's way when they are sent to a region of Mexico that is not familiar to them?

Under the strategy, deportees are often flown hundreds of miles from where they illegally entered the country and returned to Mexico through another port of entry, preventing them from reconnecting with human smugglers and attempting the crossing once more.

Some, for example, have been apprehended in Texas and then transferred and deported through Calexico, Calif., Richard Marosi reports in The Times. U.S. customs authorities say the Alien Transfer Exit Program, as it is called, "breaks the smuggling cycle."

It also brings to mind a troubling headline that largely slipped below the radar this summer.

In June, dozens of illegal immigrants held at a private detention facility in New Mexico wrote letters to a border activist group pleading for help to avoid being transferred and deported through Texas, which they said would place their lives in danger.

The Zetas cartel is said to control human and drug smuggling through much of northeastern Mexico, across from Texas, and is also known to commit atrocities against migrants making passage through the region. Zetas are believed to have massacred 72 mostly Central American migrants last year in a town in Tamaulipas state, in a case that drew international reproach.

They're also suspected in the hijacking of low-cost buses that run through the area, which may be connected to the many mass graves that have turned up hundreds of bodies in Mexico's northern region, as The Times has reported. Cartels also practice forced recruitment of migrants, even slavery, Mexican authorities and immigrant advocates have said. (Links in Spanish.)

The number of migrants held at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico and who asked not to be deported through Texas this summer eventually reached 52, said Hannah Hafter, a coordinator for the No More Deaths project in Nogales, Ariz.

"As far as I can tell, at this point all have served their sentences and been deported," Hafter said in an email message Thursday. It was not clear whether these migrants were deported to the Mexican state of Sonora, as some requested, or elsewhere.

"Since that time, we have not heard from any of them and have not had the capacity to follow up," she added. "To me, it demonstrates a severe inflexibility in the system including at the risk of human life."

In a statement to No More Deaths, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had said, "While ICE recognizes the current situation relating to violence in Mexico, the agency is not in the practice of allowing detainees to request repatriation to specific locations in Mexico."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/09/mexico-zetas-deportation-illegal-immigration-letter-exit-transfer.html

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Home-grown terrorism suspect testifies about plot to kidnap and kill

Daniel Patrick Boyd is the son of a Marine Corps officer. With his sturdy build, blond hair and blue eyes, he could be a model for a U.S. military recruiting poster.

But the U.S. government says Boyd is a home-grown Islamic terrorist. He and six other men were charged in North Carolina in 2009 with conspiring to provide material support for a terrorist plot to kidnap and kill people overseas.

In federal court in New Bern, N.C., on Wednesday, Boyd turned against three alleged co-conspirators and testified for the government in a plea deal.

Boyd said he and the others discussed attacking military bases in North Carolina and Virginia, including kidnapping a general and cutting off his ring finger to send to authorities in exchange for the release of a Muslim prisoner held in New York.

"I spoke recklessly. I went to the extreme and made very poor decisions," Boyd told a federal court, the New Bern Sun Journal reported.

Boyd, 41, a drywall contractor who lived in Johnston County, N.C., went by the name Saifullah, Arabic for Sword of God, according to a federal indictment. Raised as an Episcopalian, he converted to Islam after graduating from high school. His mother's second husband was a Muslim lawyer.

In federal wiretaps played in court last week, Boyd was heard bragging to a paid government informant that he could easily infiltrate the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va.

"My father was an officer," he said on the tapes. "What would they say, their hero's son cutting their heads off?"

In his testimony, Boyd said, "I thought the best thing to do was to defend the Islamic religion," the New Bern paper reported.

Boyd pleaded guilty in February to 11 charges relating to conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism.

Among those indicted in 2009 were Boyd's sons, Dylan Boyd, 24, and Zakariya Boyd, 21, who also converted to Islam. Both men have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify for the government.

Prosecutors said the defendants trained to become mujahedin, or holy warriors, and vowed to die as Muslims martyrs, if necessary.

The July 2009 indictment charged the group with conspiring "to advance violent jihad ... and committing acts of murder, kidnapping or maiming persons."

Prosecutors said the defendants trained in military-style tactics and traveled to the Middle East and Kosovo to lay plans for attacks. FBI agents found nearly two dozen guns and 27,000 rounds of ammunition in Daniel Boyd's home, according to prosecutors. Federal investigators gathered 800 hours of recordings detailing the alleged plot.

Dylan Boyd is scheduled to be sentenced in December. Under his plea arrangement, he faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. Daniel and Zakariya Boyd will be sentenced after the trial in New Bern of co-defendants Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, Ziyad Yaghi and Hysen Sherifi. All three have pleaded not guilty.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/home-grown-terror-suspect-testifies-about-plot-to-kidnap-and-kill.html#more

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From Google News

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Arizona

Community policing the goal of Pima Co. Sheriff's Directed Patrols

But the Directed Patrol Unit is something entirely different. It is community policing at a grassroots level, where deputies know citizens by name. And where each member of the Directed Patrol team takes a vested interest in the communities where they live and work.

If you haven't met Sgt. Marcia Durns it's probably only a matter of time until you will.

That's one of the reasons Directed Patrols are so successful.

Because the sergeants and deputies get out and meet people every day.

Durns says there's nothing quite like talking to people face to face.

And that's what she did Thursday at the Amado Food Bank.

"You can leave me a message," Durns said, talking to small group inside the Food Bank. "You don't have your name or anything. Just leave us what you're seeing because we can't fix it unless we know it's broken."

After posting a flier that tells folks how to get in touch with Directed Patrols, it's off to a call in nearby Elephant Head, a rural community south of Green Valley.

"We have a citizen report of some people possibly stealing wiring," Durns said.

Within minutes, Directed Patrol deputies assist in the search and arrest of two suspects.

Approximately $1,000 worth of copper wiring was being ripped off from a well site when one of the workers at the site noticed something strange out of the corner of his eye.

"I jumped around the truck and saw two kids pulling the wire," said Dennis Myers of Crane Machine and Pump Service. "Their car was parked right there and they were fixing to load it up and haul it off."

Myers immediately called 911 and deputies picked him up so he could identify two young men they'd just pulled over on the frontage road off Interstate 19.

Myers still can't get over how fast the response was.

"I'm just really pleased they caught them," Myers said. "It was a quick, quick response--I couldn't believe it."

In just ten months, Directed Patrols out of the Green Valley substation cleared more than 30 cases, many of them drug related in areas of Arivaca and Amado.

But it's more than just this.

It's talking to people about what concerns them, what angers them...and what they can do as Directed Patrol officers to help.

"They know what's important to the community and they know how important it is to solve the quality of life issues," says Lt. Deanna Coultas, who oversees the unit's sergeant and two deputies in Green Valley.

"And it's not just solve the problem at the time," Coultas says. "It's solve it for the long term."

http://www.kold.com/story/15583228/community-policing-the-goal-of-pima-co-sheriffs-directed-patrols?clienttype=printable

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