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JERUSALEM (AP & staff) — Gaza militants launched barrages of rockets deep into Israel early Friday and Israeli aircraft struck targets in the Palestinian territory in the aftermath of the deadliest attack against Israelis in three years. Gunmen who appear to have originated in Gaza and crossed into southern Israel through the Egyptian desert ambushed civilian vehicles traveling on a remote road, killing eight people. Six were civilians, and two were members of Israeli security forces responding to the incursion. The attack signaled a new danger for Israel from its border with the Sinai Peninsula, long quiet under the rule of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. He was deposed in February, and the desert of the Sinai Peninsula — always restive and controlled largely by Bedouin tribes — has become increasingly lawless. The sudden spike in violence threatened to upset the already frayed ties between Israel and Egypt and escalate the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. On Friday, militants in Gaza launched at least 10 rockets into Israel, the military said. One, aimed at the city of Ashkelon, was intercepted by the new Israeli anti-missile system known as Iron Dome. Another hit next to a synagogue in the port city of Ashdod and wounded six Israelis, according to Israeli emergency services. Israel’s south has been equipped with early warning systems and bomb shelters over years of rocket fire from Gaza, and those measures have helped keep casualties low. The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said it was “too early” to say that a broad escalation in Gaza was imminent. “If we see that Hamas is choosing to escalate, we will not hesitate to expand the scope of our actions, respond in strength and exact a price from Hamas,” he told Israel Army Radio on Friday morning. Egyptian officials said three Egyptian security personnel were killed in Thursday’s gunbattles. It was unclear if they were shot by the militants or by Israeli soldiers pursuing them. At least five of the militants were killed, the Israeli military said. Israel responded hours after the border attack with an airstrike in Gaza that killed five members of the Palestinian group that Israel said was behind it, an organization known as the Popular Resistance Committees. The dead included the group’s leader. A spokesman for the group, Abu Mujahid, would not confirm or deny responsibility for the attack inside Israel, but said [...]
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NEW DELHI (AP & staff) — India’s most prominent anti-corruption crusader began a public hunger strike and mass protest Friday, adopting the tactics of liberation hero Mohandas K. Gandhi to push for government reform. Thousands of cheering supporters braved the pouring rain to greet Anna Hazare as he arrived at the Ramlila fairground hours after he stepped out of a New Delhi jail to wild cheers of “Long live Mother India” and a shower of rose petals. “The youth of this country has awoken, so a great future for this country is not far off,” he told the crowd at the fair ground. “The traitors who have robbed this country will no longer be tolerated.” Anna Hazare’s standoff with authorities has galvanized the nation’s anger at official corruption and put Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government on the defensive even as it fights off a raft of scandals. The white-clad 73-year-old activist, who has been fasting since Tuesday and says he has lost 3 kilograms (6.5 pounds), repeatedly invoked Gandhi as he sought to cloak his demands for a tough anti-corruption law in the halo of the revered liberation leader. “This is a new revolution. This is the new freedom struggle,” he said from a stage underneath a massive tent. “We have lit the flame of a revolution. Don’t let the flame die out now.” Police briefly arrested Hazare on Tuesday after he declared his intention to hold a public hunger strike in defiance of their restrictions on the demonstration. He began his fast in jail anyway and then refused to leave when they tried to free him, demanding the right to hold a long public demonstration. A compromise was reached Thursday that would allow him to hold a 15-day protest, but Hazare opted to stay in the jail an extra day as the venue was being prepared. On Friday morning, he stepped out of the jail’s gate to the applause of supporters, who climbed atop parked cars to get a glance of the activist before he climbed into the back of a truck to lead a slow-moving procession through the city to the protest venue. Along the way, Hazare stopped off to pay his respects at the Raj Ghat memorial to Gandhi. Hazare’s protest is aimed at pushing the government to pass his version of a proposed bill to create a powerful ombudsman to police top officials. Activists have criticized [...]
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TOKYO (AP & staff) — A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 struck off Japan’s northeastern coast Friday, triggering a tsunami advisory that was later lifted. Japan’s Meteorological Agency said the quake hit at 2:36 p.m. (0536 GMT) and was centered slightly south of where a massive magnitude-9.0 temblor struck in March. The agency issued a tsunami advisory, predicting waves of 20 inches (50 centimeters) along the coast of Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, where a nuclear plant crippled in the March 11 quake is located. But about a half-hour later, the advisory was lifted. There were no abnormalities in key equipment at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, said Chie Hosoda, an official with the Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant’s operator. She said some of the plant’s workers assigned to the coastal side of the facility temporarily retreated inside the building. Announcers on television urged residents in coastal areas to head for higher ground, but about a half-hour after the quake, there were no reports of a tsunami reaching Japan. In Onagawa, about 210 miles (340 kilometers) north of Tokyo, town official Hironori Suzuki said there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. There was no visible swelling of the ocean. “It was a rather big one, perhaps it was because we are still in a makeshift office,” Suzuki told public broadcaster NHK. Suzuki said the town has urged all residents via community broadcast to stay away from the coast and evacuate to higher ground. In Tokyo, buildings swayed only mildly.
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KARACHI, Pakistan (AP & staff) — Police say four more bodies have been found in Pakistan’s largest city, bringing the death toll in three days of suspected gang-related violence to 52. Many of the victims in Karachi were tortured, shot and stuffed in sacks dumped on streets. Police chief Saud Mirza says the new bodies were discovered Friday morning. Seventeen people were killed Wednesday, and 31 on Thursday. The gangs are allegedly affiliated with the city’s main political parties and have been blamed for a surge in killings in recent months in Karachi, a city of some 18 million people. Although Karachi has a long history of political, ethnic and sectarian violence, the recent wave is high by historical standards. More than 300 people were killed in July alone.
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP & staff) — Two suicide bombers attacked a British compound in the Afghan capital on Friday, killing at least three people and wounding two, police and eyewitnesses said. An official from the British Embassy, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the incident, confirmed that there had been an attack against the British Council building on the west side of Kabul. He said the British Embassy was in contact with Afghan authorities at the scene. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack. The two blasts occurred in the early hours of Afghan Independence Day, marking Afghanistan’s full independence from Britain in 1919. It was unclear whether the attack was related to the anniversary. Kabul police official Farooq Asas said a suicide bomber detonated a car laden with explosives outside the compound. At least one insurgent attacked the compound on foot, Asas said. Two Afghan policemen and a municipal worker were killed, he said. The explosions shattered glass in buildings a third of a mile (half a kilometer) from the site. A reporter for The Associated Press reported gunfire at the scene and smoke rising from the area. Afghan police said at least one other attacker got inside the compound and was exchanging gunfire with Afghan troops two hours after the initial blast. Afghan and British troops were dispatched to the scene early Friday morning and made preparations to assault the compound. The British Council focuses on education and building civil society internationally. While violence continues to rage in many parts of Afghanistan, attacks in the capital are relatively uncommon. In June, 21 people were killed at a Kabul hotel, including nine insurgents, with militants fighting NATO and Afghan troops for five hours with rocket-propelled grenades and suicide bombs. In western Afghanistan on Thursday, a roadside bomb killed at least 21 passengers traveling on a minibus. Meanwhile, in the country’s east, a suicide car bomber attacked a coalition base Thursday, killing two Afghan security guards, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The minibus ran over a roadside bomb in Obe district in Herat province, setting off a blast that killed 21 passengers, said Gen. Zaiuddin Mamoodi, an Afghan National Police commander for four provinces of western Afghanistan. Twelve of the victims were children under the age of 5, three were women and six were [...]
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP and Staff) — Early morning explosions have rocked Libya’s capital, striking near Moammar Gadhafi’s main compound of Bab al-Aziziyah. Seven thunderous blasts on Friday could be felt at a hotel where foreign journalists stay in Tripoli. As Associated Press correspondent watched flames from the bombs fall from the sky as NATO jets circled the air over the compound. Residents also told the AP that three strikes were heard hitting the road to the airport in the capital. It wasn’t immediately clear what was hit or if there were civilian casualties. NATO has been bombarding military targets in Libya since a no-fly zone was instituted in March. Rebel fighters are also closing in on the capital from the west and the south.
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GENEVA (AP and Staff) — Government forces in Syria may have committed crimes against humanity by conducting summary executions, torturing prisoners and targeting children in their crackdown against opposition protesters, a high-level U.N. human rights team said Thursday. Their report recommends that the U.N. Security Council refer Syria to the International Criminal Court for prosecution of alleged atrocities, a move that is likely to be discussed by the council at a closed-door session in New York later Thursday. “The mission found a pattern of human rights violations that constitutes widespread or systematic attacks against the civilian population, which may amount to crimes against humanity,” the U.N. investigators said in their 22-page report. Crimes against humanity are considered the most serious of all international human rights violations after genocide. But the U.N. human rights chief, Navi Pillay, told reporters Thursday after briefing the Security Council in New York that she didn’t expect a referral to the international court. She said there was no reaction from the Security Council “so I do not hold out much hope” for a referral. The report’s findings comes as President Barack Obama and a slate of European leaders called on Syria’s President Bashar Assad to step down, saying his brutal suppression of his people had made him unfit to lead. Among the specific atrocities mentioned in the report are the alleged execution of 26 blindfolded men at a football stadium in the southern city of Daraa on May 1; indiscriminate firing of live ammunition at peaceful demonstrators using snipers and helicopters, resulting in the death of hundreds of people including women and children; and the killing of injured protesters in hospitals — including by locking people in morgue refrigerators alive. “Children have not only been targeted by security forces, but they have been repeatedly subject to the same human rights and criminal violations as adults, including torture,” the report found. It cited the case of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib from the southern village of Jiza, whose mutilated body, with his penis severed, was delivered to his family weeks after he disappeared April 29. Eyewitnesses provided the investigators with names of 353 people who were summarily executed, and corroborated accounts of Syrian security forces posing as civilians who acted as ‘agents provocateurs,’ causing unrest during demonstrations, the report said. The U.N. team, led by Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-wha Kang, was denied access to Syria itself, [...]
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EILAT, Israel (AP & staff) — Gunmen who crossed from the Egyptian desert launched a series of attacks Thursday in southern Israel, killing eight people and threatening to destabilize a volatile border region that includes the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula. Israel blamed an armed Palestinian group from neighboring Gaza. Israeli forces killed five of the gunmen along the border with Egypt, the military said, and later launched an airstrike inside Gaza that killed five other militants from the same group as well as a child. The Israeli military said three of the dead men in Gaza had been involved in planning the attack. Gunfire continued on both sides of the border late into the evening. After nightfall, Israel’s “Iron Dome” anti-missile system intercepted a rocket fired by Gaza militants at the city of Ashkelon, the military said. The attacks were the deadliest against Israelis since a gunman killed eight civilians in Jerusalem in 2008. They suggested that Egypt’s recent political upheaval and a resulting power vacuum in Sinai had allowed militants to open a new front against Israel on the long-quiet frontier. The attack began shortly after noon in southern Israel with gunfire at a civilian bus heading toward the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, currently at the height of the tourist season. A number of passengers were hit, the military said. The gunmen had crossed the border and set up an ambush along a 300-yard (meter) strip, armed with automatic weapons, grenades and suicide bomb belts, according to the military. “We heard a shot and saw a window explode. I didn’t really understand what was happening at first,” passenger Idan Kaner told Israel’s Channel 2 TV. “After another shot, there was chaos in the bus and everyone jumped on everyone else.” Within an hour, gunmen had riddled another passing bus and two cars with bullets and rigged a roadside bomb that detonated under an army jeep rushing to the scene. At the same time, mortar gunners in Gaza opened fire at soldiers along the Gaza-Israel border fence. TV video showed the first bus with its windows shattered. Its seats were stained with blood and luggage littered the aisle. The Israeli dead included six civilians and one soldier, according to the Israeli military’s southern commander, Maj. Gen. Tal Russo. Israeli soldiers eventually killed five attackers, the military said, and defense officials said three of [...]
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP & staff) — Investigators have been told that just two days after an American tourist was reported missing in Aruba, her travel companion tried to collect on a $1.5 million accidental-death insurance policy he took out on her, The Associated Press has learned. A person who provided information to authorities told the AP that Gary V. Giordano, now detained on the Caribbean island, bought the insurance specifically for his five-day getaway with Robyn Gardner. The person did not have authorization to publicly release the information and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. Aruban authorities have confirmed that Giordano had an insurance policy that covered the missing woman, but have not said who the beneficiary is, how much the policy is worth or whether Giordano tried to collect. Giordano, a 50-year-old owner of a temporary staffing business from Gaithersburg, Md., traveled to Aruba with Gardner on July 31 and reported her missing two days later. He told police that she disappeared while the two were snorkeling. He initially assisted the search but was detained at the airport Aug. 5 as he tried to leave Aruba. Authorities said they found discrepancies in his story. Giordano has denied any wrongdoing through his attorney. A judge ruled Monday there is enough evidence to hold Giordano until at least the end of August on suspicion of involvement in Gardner’s presumed death. The 35-year-old woman’s body has not been found and Aruban authorities on Thursday were preparing for a new, large-scale search of the island for her remains or other evidence. Aruban authorities in general seem more guarded with information than they were during the investigation into the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway — a case that remains unsolved. Holloway disappeared on the final night of a high school graduation trip to the island. Solicitor General Taco Stein, the spokesman for the investigation, has confirmed that Giordano had travel insurance, but said authorities are still reviewing financial documents provided by U.S. authorities and are trying to determine if they are relevant to the investigation. “It’s not unusual in and of itself to buy travel insurance,” he told the AP. “Loads of people do it.” Investigators were trying to determine if there was anything unusual about the policy. “If you change the policy around and make it higher or whatever, then it may be of interest to the [...]
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OSLO, Norway (AP & staff) — The man behind the Norway attacks that killed 77 people last month hung up twice on authorities after calling to surrender during the shooting at a youth camp on Utoya island, police said Thursday. The first phone call came 26 minutes before officers arrested Breivik, who identified himself as the commander in an anti-communist resistance movement, police said. “I am at Utoya at the moment. I want to surrender,” he said, according to a transcript distributed at a news conference. Local police chief Sissel Hammer said “the operator took the conversation seriously and called back. No one answered.” Breivik called again one minute before being captured and asked to be transferred to the commander of the anti-terror police unit. “I am a commander in the Norwegian resistance movement,” the shooter said. “I have fulfilled my operation, so I want to … surrender.” Once again, Breivik hung up, but he surrendered to police one minute later. Anders Behring Breivik’s lawyer Geir Lippestad told Norwegian daily Verdens Gang, that the the self-confessed killer said he shot at two groups of young people at Utoya and also fired over the lake in between two phone calls. Police officials also said that based on information they received from calls about the shooting on the island, they believed at the time that two to five attackers were involved and that they had various weapons and explosives available. Breivik detonated a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo, killing eight, and then shot dead 69 others at the youth camp outside Oslo on July 22. The last funeral for the victims who died from Breivik’s shooting spree was held on Thursday.
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