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Apr1
U.S. missile strike kills 12 in Pakistan
Filed under: U.S., World; Tagged as: afghanistan, army, barack obama, breaking news, muslim, pakistan, president barack obama, terrorist, united states, war, washington, whitehouseAttack targets alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader 
ISLAMABAD – A suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles Wednesday at an alleged hide-out connected to a Taliban leader who has threatened to attack Washington, killing 12 people and wounding several others, officials said.
The attack came a day after Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a police academy in the eastern city of Lahore, saying it was retaliation for U.S. missile strikes on militant strongholds along the Afghan border. Mehsud also vowed to launch an attack on Washington or even the White House in phone interviews with The Associated Press and local media.
The FBI, however, said he had made similar threats previously and that there was no indication of anything imminent.
A local intelligence official told The Associated Press that the compound attacked Wednesday in a remote area of the Orakzai tribal region near the Afghan border belonged to one of Mehsud’s commanders.
Up to 30 suspected militants were at the compound when it was hit, and the Taliban have moved the dead and injured to an undisclosed location, he said.
The strike is believed to be the first in Orakzai, another sign the U.S. is expanding its attack zone, possibly because of pressure on militants to keep moving.
Since the U.S. escalated its missile campaign starting in August, most of the estimated three dozen strikes have landed in North and South Waziristan tribal regions, where Mehsud is strongest.
Two other senior intelligence officials said they believe 12 people were killed in the strike, including close associates of Mehsud. But it was difficult to confirm the exact identities of those involved because the Taliban surrounded the area shortly after the attack, they said.
The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Liaquat Ali, a local government official in Orakzai, confirmed the attack but could not provide casualty figures or the identities of the people targeted.
Mehsud in the cross-hairs
Pakistan has publicly protested the attacks, calling them a violation of its sovereignty that also deepens anti-American sentiment. But President Barack Obama’s administration has signaled it has no intention of backing off. Officials say the strikes have killed top al-Qaida figures.Mehsud has no record of attacking targets abroad, although he is suspected of being behind a 10-man cell arrested in Barcelona in January 2008 for plotting suicide attacks in Spain. The U.S. recently placed a $5 million bounty on Mehsud’s head.
Pakistan’s former government and the CIA have named him as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to al-Qaida, and of training suicide bombers.
Washington has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants operating in its territory who are believed to pose a threat to U.S. and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. Militants have also been increasing attacks within Pakistan, threatening to destabilize the nuclear-armed country.
Monday’s attack on a police academy on Lahore’s outskirts left at least 12 people dead, including seven police, and sparked an eight-hour standoff with security forces that ended when black-clad commandos stormed the compound. Some of the gunmen blew themselves up.
Analysts doubt that Mehsud’s Taliban fighters carried off the academy attack on their own, saying the group is likely working more closely than ever with militants based far from the Afghan frontier. It’s a constellation that includes al-Qaida, presenting a formidable challenge to the U.S. as it increases its troop presence in the region, not to mention Pakistan’s own stability.
No CommentsMar20Scandal puts focus on how CIA polices itself
Filed under: Obama, Politics, U.S.; Tagged as: barack obama, breaking news, central intelligence agency, cia, congress, government, Politics, president barack obama, prostitute, sex, terrorist, washington, whitehouseAllegations of officers’ sex misdeeds leads to scrutiny from Congress 
WASHINGTON – As a novice CIA case officer in the Middle East, Andrew Warren quickly learned the value of sex in recruiting spies. Colleagues say that he made an early habit of taking informants to strip clubs, and that he later began arranging out-of-town visits to brothels for his best recruits. Often Warren would travel with them, according to two colleagues who worked with him for years.
His methods earned him promotions and notoriety over a lengthy career, until Warren, 41, became ensnared in a sex scandal. Two Algerian women have accused the Virginia native of drugging and sexually assaulting them, and, in one instance, videotaping the encounter.
Six weeks after the allegations came to light, Warren has been formally notified by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta of his impending dismissal, according to U.S. government officials familiar with the case. But the episode — one of three sex-related scandals to shake the CIA this year — has drawn harsh questions from Congress about whether the agency adequately polices its far-flung workforce or takes sufficient steps to root out corrupt behavior.
‘An organization of professional liars’
The CIA says that these problems involve a tiny fraction of its workforce, and that those found to have breached rules are punished or fired. But former officers say the cases underscore a perennial challenge: guarding against scandal in a workforce — the size of which is classified but is generally estimated to be 20,000 — that prides itself on secrecy and deception.“You have an organization of professional liars,” said Tyler Drumheller, who oversaw hundreds of officers as chief of the agency’s European division. Experienced field managers are needed, he said, because inevitably “some people will try to take advantage of the system . . . and it’s a system that can be taken advantage of.”
The allegations against Warren drew an angry blast from the Senate panel that oversees the CIA. “The alleged activities are completely unacceptable,” committee leaders Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said in a joint statement last month. Feinstein also criticized the CIA for what she said was not promptly informing Congress about the case, given its potential to damage U.S. relations with Algeria.
Repeated attempts in recent weeks to contact Warren through relatives were unsuccessful.
Misuses of money
The recent string of embarrassing revelations started with the CIA’s former No. 3 officer, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, who was indicted on corruption charges two years ago. Court documents released in recent weeks depict Foggo as bullying the office of the agency’s general counsel into giving a job to his mistress, whose subsequent performance reviews were subpar.Last month, agency officials confirmed the firing of Steve Levan, a 16-year veteran who pleaded guilty to misusing CIA credit cards. Levan, an analyst, worked at the agency’s headquarters for the No. 2 official, Stephen R. Kappes. As part of his plea agreement, Levan acknowledged obtaining credit card numbers assigned to undercover operatives and using them to run up bills surpassing $115,000. Much of the money was spent on hotel rooms and gifts for a mistress, according to two agency officials familiar with the case. He is awaiting sentencing this spring.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Levan’s attorney, declined to comment on the case. In a pre-sentencing motion filed last week, Nachmanoff said the judge should consider his client’s strong record of service for the CIA — a record the agency had declined to release, he said.
Rapid ascent halted
But the most damaging revelations involved Warren, an Arabic speaker and Middle East specialist who was on a rapid ascent after CIA postings in Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and Algeria. He most recently served as Algiers station chief. But the State Department ordered him home in October after two Algerian nationals alleged that he assaulted them in separate incidents at his apartment.The women told State Department investigators that Warren assaulted them after giving them drug-laced drinks that made them pass out. State referred the matter to the Justice Department, where an investigation is ongoing. Warren has not been charged.
While looking into the allegations, U.S. officials discovered in Warren’s apartment more than two dozen video recordings that he apparently made of his sexual encounters, according to news accounts and two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation. One of the women behind the rape allegations appears in one of the videos, the officials said.
Current and former agency officials say that Warren and Levan were considered competent professionals with stellar work records, qualities that perhaps explain why their alleged misdeeds would have gone undetected.
“The fact of the matter is that the thousands of people who work at CIA are exceptionally dedicated, and cases of impropriety are extremely rare,” agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said. When there are such cases, he said, the CIA “looks into the allegations, follows up on them and cooperates fully with law enforcement authorities.”
Warning signs?
Several colleagues of Warren’s, though, spoke of warning signs that might have alerted the CIA sooner. Some who worked with him over several years said they were particularly concerned about the frequency of Warren’s use of strip clubs and other sex-related establishments for recruiting. The former officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agency does not allow them to discuss their CIA work publicly, said they were not surprised by the assault allegations.As CIA case officers attempt to recruit a foreign spy, they often offer personal inducements, ranging from cash to medical care. In some cases, a potential recruit may be taken to a strip club or even to a prostitute if it is deemed critical to cementing the relationship, longtime officers say. But for Warren, “it was a lifestyle thing,” costing the agency thousands of dollars, said one former co-worker who describes himself as a friend. The bills were routinely paid, he said.
“As long as you were doing good work, it was okay,” he said.
Mostly a ‘self-regulating system’
A. John Radsan, a former CIA assistant general counsel, said there are internal guidelines and structures — including the CIA inspector general’s office and a separate review board that oversees clandestine operations — that are intended to guard against scandal. In reality, he said, it is a self-regulating system with few incentives for reporting bad behavior.“You want a culture that values innovation and creativity and doesn’t mind violating the laws of other countries, but at the same time, you want a culture of compliance and honesty,” Radsan said. “It is a built-in contradiction.”
The agency’s internal management practices were also called into question last month during court proceedings for Foggo, who served as the top CIA administrator from November 2004 to May 2006.
A lengthy prosecution memo, made public over the objections of Foggo’s attorneys, listed a series of ethical alarms that did not prevent his reaching the agency’s highest ranks. Two personnel reports in 1989, for example, noted that Foggo “takes a very liberal and self-serving position regarding the interpretation of Agency rules and regulations” and warned that “he is likely to remain a potential threat to security through his poor judgment.”
In a court filing last month, Foggo’s attorneys said that their client has “committed his life to public service” and that his dedication and skills justified his promotions. They declined to comment further yesterday.
“Foggo was never a truly honest public servant” during his 24 years in the CIA, three prosecutors wrote in their memo to a federal judge in Alexandria shortly before Foggo was sentenced to 37 months in prison for corrupting the agency’s contracts. “He spent years defrauding the country.”
When Foggo manipulated agency contracts in 2003 and 2005, his colleagues and subordinates did not act on their suspicions of wrongdoing, the prosecutors said. Instead, they demonstrated a persistent reluctance to challenge authority that seems at odds with the climate of dissent and debate that the agency says it encourages.
After a former colleague of Foggo’s who had become his mistress was turned down for a job in the general counsel’s office, Foggo, who was the CIA’s executive director, called an associate general counsel into his office and “grew increasingly loud in tone and condescending,” according to a memo the counsel placed in her files. “[S]peaking in the third person, [Foggo] said, among other things, that when the EXDIR has an interest in a candidate for employment that I had better respect the EXDIR’s interest.”
The mistress was subsequently hired after an accelerated security check, because her paperwork was tagged “ExDir interest.” When her failure to perform required duties provoked her supervisor’s complaints, Foggo arranged for the supervisor — a 20-year veteran who had won many performance awards — to be ousted and moved to the Defense Department. The supervisor alleged in a court affidavit that her ouster was retaliatory.
No CommentsMar7Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad resigns
Filed under: World; Tagged as: breaking news, cairo egypt, gaza, hamas, middle east, military us, palestinian authority, terrorism, terrorist, unconstitutional, west bankNo Comments
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, left, shakes hands with President Mahmoud Abbas as he submits his resignation at Abbas' headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Saturday, March 7, 2009. Fayyad says the resignation would take effect after the formation of a Palestinian unity government, but no later than the end of March. Fayyad's announcement comes just before the resumption of power-sharing talks between Abbas and his rivals from militant group Hamas.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian Prime Minister submitted his resignation Saturday, a move that could help pave the way for an elusive power-sharing deal between Palestinian moderates and militants.
Salam Fayyad was appointed prime minister by Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007, in response to the violent takeover of Gaza by the militant Islamic Hamas in June 2007. Mr. Abbas and the Fayyad government control the West Bank, while Hamas continues to rule Gaza, despite a recent three-week Israeli military offensive there.
Mr. Fayyad’s decision was meant as a confidence-building measure ahead of the resumption of Palestinian reconciliation talks on Tuesday in Cairo. Negotiators from Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah movement are trying to form a transition government that is to prepare for presidential and legislative elections by January 2010.
Mr. Abbas said Saturday that he hoped a transition government could be formed by the end of March, suggesting that power-sharing talks have moved into high gear, following failed attempts in the past.
Mr. Fayyad’s resignation “comes to enhance and support the national dialogue to reach a national unity government,” Mr. Abbas said.
Mr. Fayyad said he would step down after the formation of a new government but no later than the end of March.
However, Hamas seemed dismissive Saturday, arguing that the Fayyad government had been unconstitutional from the start.
“This government did not work for the sake of the Palestinians, it worked for its own agenda. This end was expected for a government that was illegal and unconstitutional,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.
Mr. Fayyad, a respected economist and political independent, had won widespread international support as prime minister. He carried out government reforms, including making government spending more transparent and deploying Palestinian security forces in former militant strongholds in the West Bank.
The support for the U.S.-educated Mr. Fayyad also translated into massive sums of foreign aid for the Palestinians. In 2007, donor countries pledged $7.7 billion over three years for the Fayyad government. Last week, another pledging conference, convened in the wake of Israel’s Gaza conference, yielded $5.2 billion over two years.
It was not immediately clear whether the pledges would be affected by a change in the Palestinian government. Donors had said at the pledging conference that much of the aid would be funneled through the Fayyad government.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad,left, sits next to President Mahmoud Abbas after submitting his resignation letter at Abbas' headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Saturday, March 7, 2009. Fayyad says the resignation would take effect after the formation of a Palestinian unity government, but no later than the end of March. Fayyad's announcement comes just before the resumption of power-sharing talks between Abbas and his rivals from militant group Hamas.
Mr. Fayyad said in a statement on Saturday that he was hoping to pave the way for a unity government. “This step comes in the efforts to form a national conciliation government,” Mr. Fayyad said.
The political split between Abbas and Hamas broke out into the open in January 2006 when Hamas won parliament elections, defeating Fatah, which had dominated Palestinian politics for decades.
Arab mediators repeatedly attempted to bridge the gaps but failed, and Mr. Hamas seized power by force in Gaza in 2007. In response, Mr. Abbas fired Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and replaced him with Mr. Fayyad, while Israel and Egypt responded by closing Gaza’s borders. In 2008, Abbas conducted peace talks with Israel, but the negotiations ended without progress.
The rival camps appear to have stronger reasons now than in the best to reach a power-sharing deal.
A negotiated deal with Israel seems out of reach, particularly now that a right-wing government is about to be formed in Israel. Hamas, meanwhile, survived Israel’s Gaza offensive, but has failed to lift the border blockade.
In other developments Saturday, a member of an Islamic Jihad rocket squad was killed and two others were wounded in northern Gaza in what a Palestinian medic said was an Israeli air strike.
However, the military said it did not carry out any operations in Gaza on Saturday.
The Islamic Jihad squad was targeted as it fired rockets toward Israel, according to Palestinian health official Dr. Moawiya Hassanain and Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Ahmed. The Israeli military confirmed that at least five rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel on Saturday, causing no injuries or damage.
Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers separately declared a cease-fire Jan. 18, after the Israeli offensive. However, talks on a durable truce have hit a snag, and rocket fire and airstrikes continue.
Mar5Man goes on a rampage: rams police car and bus
Filed under: World; Tagged as: arab, breaking news, gaza, islam, islamic jihad, israel, muslim, palestinian, police, terrorist, terrorist attack, the middle eastNo Comments
An Israeli police officer escorts a wounded girl, whose face is painted for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim, from the scene after a bulldozer slammed into vehicles in Jerusalem, on Thursday.
JERUSALEM – A Palestinian driver rammed a construction vehicle into a bus and police car on a highway Thursday, wounding two officers before he was shot dead, police said, the latest in a string of attacks by militants using heavy machinery against Israeli targets.
Witnesses described a harrowing sight of a towering yellow front loader speeding along Jerusalem’s Begin Highway, dragging the police car, flipping it into the air and trying to crush it with its front shovel.
Begin Highway is a main thoroughfare connecting the city’s north and south. Witnesses said the attacker apparently worked at a nearby construction site. There was no immediate claim of responsibility and police said the man was not carrying identification.
“It was simply an attack meant to murder innocent people,” Mayor Nir Barkat told Channel 2 television. He called for the demolition of the attacker’s home, a tactic that has drawn international criticism in the past. Barkat said home demolitions are needed to deter other attacks.
The rampage came as Israel prepared to celebrate Purim, a holiday in which schools are closed, children dress up in costumes and families are out and about at parties and public events.
Barkat said the attack would not stop next week’s celebrations. “We need to get back to our routine as fast as possible to show the terrorists that they won’t ruin our holiday,” he said.
Man says he chased, shot driver
One witness, a taxi driver identified as “Dor,” told Israel Radio that he chased the driver as he watched the attack unfold.“I saw the police car fly into the air. He flipped it over twice, then continued dragging it toward a bus that was stuck in traffic,” he said. He told the station he fired four shots at the man, wounding him. “Then a policeman came with his M-16 and finished him off,” he said.
Deputy police chief Nisso Shachar said the attacker was first spotted by a traffic police car. “The officer saw the bulldozer lift up a police squad car with its shovel after trying to squash it,” he said. “It is without a doubt a terror attack.”
Schachar said the man was killed and an open copy of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, was found in the vehicle. He said the presence of the book indicated the attacker was affiliated with or influenced by Islamic radicals. Police said the two wounded officers were lightly hurt.
Third bulldozer attack in past 8 months
It was the third bulldozer attack in Jerusalem in the past eight months.Last July, a Palestinian smashed cars and a bus with his heavy construction vehicle in central Jerusalem, killing three people and wounding dozens. Three weeks later, a Palestinian attacker driving a construction vehicle rammed a bus, overturned a car and wounded five people before he was shot dead.
In September, a Palestinian driver rammed his car into a crowd of Israeli soldiers, wounding 19 people, before he was shot dead.
All of the attackers were from east Jerusalem, where Palestinian residents hold Israeli ID cards and can move freely about Israel.
New surge in Gaza fighting
The attack came amid a new surge in fighting in the Gaza Strip, about 50 miles southwest of Jerusalem.An Israeli air strike early Thursday killed two Islamic Jihad militants and wounded another, bringing to four the number of group members killed by Israel in less than 24 hours and drawing retaliatory rocket fire at Israel.
Islamic Jihad said the three men were returning together to their homes in the Mughazi refugee camp in central Gaza after a night spent on patrol along the Gaza-Israel border when they were targeted.
The Israeli military said an aircraft attacked the three armed men after they fired an anti-tank missile at troops on the Israeli side of the border fence. No soldiers were reported injured.
An Israeli airstrike Wednesday evening killed two members of Islamic Jihad — an Iranian and Syrian-backed militant group.
Vow of revenge
Islamic Jihad official Abu Ahmed vowed Thursday morning that his group would avenge the killings.“Our rockets and our resistance will not stop,” he said. “We know where and when we will take revenge for these crimes.”
Later on Thursday three rockets fired from Gaza landed in empty ground in southern Israel, the military said. There were no reports of casualties.
There has been sporadic violence in Gaza since Israel ended a fierce three-week offensive on Jan. 18. Egypt has been trying to broker a cease-fire since then.
Mar2Clintons urgent push for Mideast peace
Filed under: Politics, World; Tagged as: arab, breaking news, gaza, hamas, hillary clinton, muslim, peace international, secretary of state, terroristNo CommentsTop U.S. diplomat announces $900 million pledge for Gaza, Palestinians 
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is calling for urgent action by Arabs, Israelis and the international community to break the cycle of Mideast violence and to move toward a comprehensive peace in the troubled region.Clinton delivered remarks at a conference raising money for humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip and boosting the Palestinian economy. Clinton said the United States was pledging $900 million. She gave no breakdown of the funds, but her spokesman, Robert A. Wood, said on Sunday that it included $300 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza and about $600 million in budget and development aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank.
Wood said that while all of the money is subject to approval by Congress, the intent is to provide about $200 million to help the Palestinian Authority shore up a budget shortfall and another $400 million to assist Palestinian institutional reforms and economic development. Wood said some of the $400 million might wind up aiding Gaza, but he said that would depend on the Palestinian Authority.
Some portion of the $900 million total U.S. pledge had already been budgeted for 2009, Wood said, adding that he could not immediately provide a breakdown.
Clinton said the Obama administration is committed to engaging vigorously and intensively in the Mideast to push for a durable peace.
U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist group
Getting U.S. humanitarian aid quickly to Gaza is complicated by the U.S. refusal to funnel it through the Hamas militant movement that rules Gaza. The United States considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Wood said the U.S. aid that does not go directly to the Palestinian Authority would be funneled to Gaza through international organizations and agencies.Clinton arrived at Sharm el-Sheik after an overnight flight from Washington and went quickly into a meeting with the Obama administration’s Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell, who is touring the region.
Clinton also will visit Israel and meet with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Donors at the Sharm el-Sheik conference will be asked to fund a $2.8 billion reconstruction plan put together by Abbas’ prime minister, Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected economist. Hamas, which controls Gaza and does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, was not invited.
Some aid to go into Gazans bank accounts
Fayyad wants most of the money funneled through his West Bank-based government. He already administers huge sums of foreign aid — $7.7 billion for 2008-2010 — and has been sending $120 million to Gaza each month for welfare and salaries of Abbas’ former civil servants. Other aid, such as for rebuilding homes, would go directly to the bank accounts of Gazans.Hamas prepared its own 86-page Gaza reconstruction plan and sent copies to the Arab League. But even if bypassed by the donors, as is likely, Hamas would benefit from any aid that eases pressure on it to help the needy.
Israel’s offensive to halt Hamas rocket fire from Gaza ended with a cease-fire Jan. 18.