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Special operations forces eye terrorists By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES August 12, 2005 U.S. Special Operations Command has drafted a war plan that sets up procedures for how its commandos will work with other regional commands across the globe to hunt for senior Islamic terrorists. The complex plan from SoCom in Tampa, Fla., has been in the works since summer 2002, when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed a secret directive authorizing it. His memo directed SoCom to come up with a plan for dispatching special operations forces on quick notice to virtually any spot in the world to...

The Pentagon plans to set up a task force of senior U.S. and Iraqi officials that will set conditions for withdrawing substantial numbers of American troops from Iraq next year, U.S. officials said yesterday. Up to this point, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said he would make such an important decision based on recommendations from his two main commanders in the region, Gen. John Abizaid of U.S. Central Command and Gen. George Casey Jr., who runs operations in Iraq. He will also consult with Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Military investigators did not substantiate major charges of prisoner abuse contained in one FBI agent's e-mail that was read on the Senate floor by Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin as an example of U.S.-sanctioned torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....      Gen. Schmidt wrote in his report, "Another FBI agent stated she witnessed a detainee short shackled and lying in his own excrement. The [investigation] was unable to find any documentation, testimony, or other evidence corroborating the third agent's recollection to this allegation or her e-mail allegation that one of the detainees had pulled his hair out while short shackled."        The Schmidt...

Syrians are increasing assistance to foreign fighters preparing to enter Iraq and kill civilians and U.S. troops, despite months of pressure on Damascus from Washington to crack down on the jihadists. A U.S. official said recent intelligence shows that Syria is the home to Web sites that exhort militants to come to the country for preparation to fight and die in Iraq. Syrians also are providing barracks-like housing as the recruits from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco and other Muslim countries prepare for a jihad, or holy war. The fighters also receive weapons, training and money in Syria. The Syrian government...

Sen. Richard J. Durbin expressed a conditional "regret" yesterday for his remarks linking Guantanano Bay interrogations to Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot after Vice President Dick Cheney and the American Legion unleashed another day of rebukes of the Senate's No. 2 Democrat. Mr. Durbin had refused to apologize for his Nazi speech in a Senate debate Thursday. But as the high-ranking Democrat and his party continued to feel a political backlash, Mr. Durbin issued his third -- and most contrite -- statement yesterday. "I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood," said...

The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman yesterday accused Sen. Richard J. Durbin of insulting American soldiers with a "grievous error in judgment" by comparing U.S. treatment of al Qaeda suspects to the crimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, and demanded that the Senate's No. 2 Democrat apologize. The rebuke followed a similar rebuke by the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who called Mr. Durbin "totally out of line." Republican lawmakers lined up to condemn the remarks as making the war on terror more dangerous for American troops. Some were particularly angry about the Al Jazeera...

The car bombs killing troops and civilians in Iraq have grown more sophisticated as insurgents gain training and financing across the border in Syria, defense officials say. The officials estimate that improvised explosive devices (IEDs), both roadside and car-borne, now account for 50 percent of all daily attacks, or "contacts," in Iraq. When the IED attacks began in full force in late 2003, most bombs were made of artillery and mortar shells. But lately, the coalition is discovering more sophisticated bombs made of a mix of explosives, some of which include penetrating warheads to kill people inside buildings. At the...

The Pentagon is discussing war-strategy changes for defeating Islamic terrorists that would place more emphasis on killing, capturing or discouraging midlevel operators who enable top al Qaeda leadership to function... ...Another change being discussed in an ongoing interagency review by the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and White House National Security Council is a strategy that emphasizes this is a war that targets Islamic extremism, not Islam itself. "We have to convince Muslims that al Qaeda is their mutual enemy," said the administration official. ...And a third topic is finding new ways to discourage Muslim clerics from preaching hate and encouraging...

The Marine Corps dropped all charges yesterday against 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, whom the Corps had accused of premeditated murder for shooting two Iraqi insurgents operating in the Triangle of Death south of Baghdad last year. The decision by Maj. Gen. Richard Huck, Lt. Pantano's commanding officer, ends one of the most traumatic criminal cases in recent Marine Corps history. Talk-radio hosts nationwide had come to the combat officer's aid, as had retired Marines and donors to a defense fund set up by his mother on the Web. In an e-mail to The Washington Times, Lt. Pantano said, "My family...

By Exclusive An investigating officer has recommended that the Marine Corps drop murder charges against 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, who shot to death two Iraqi insurgents a year ago during a raid on an insurgent hideout in the "Triangle of Death." The 16-page report from Lt. Col. Mark E. Winn castigates as unreliable the prosecution's chief witness, Sgt. Daniel L. Coburn, whom Lt. Pantano had removed as squad leader weeks before the April 14, 2004 shooting.

THE WASHINGTON TIMES The United States is using the same types of tactics to catch Abu Musab Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden as those that netted Saddam Hussein in a "spider hole" in Iraq. Although bin Laden's trail went cold last year after an extensive hunt in Pakistan's rugged tribal areas, the path to Zarqawi is festooned with tips and sightings that nearly resulted in his apprehension in February. "I'm absolutely confident that if he stays in Iraq, he will be captured, or if he resists, he'll be killed," Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, Joint Chiefs director of operations,...

Capture seen as path to bin Laden By Rowan Scarborough and Bill Gertz The arrest of al Qaeda's No. 3 man, Abu Farraj al-Libbi, in Pakistan promises to provide new information on Osama bin Laden's life on the run and deprives the terror network of its chief operating officer, according to counterterrorism and defense officials.     Officials said that if al-Libbi chooses to talk, he is in a position to dish out valuable information about al Qaeda's current structure, funding sources and attacks in the pipeline. And most importantly, he might provide information that could rekindle leads to bin Laden that...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES The CIA's chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing "sufficiently credible" evidence that WMDs may have been moved there. Inspector Charles Duelfer, who heads the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), made the findings in an addendum to his final report filed last year. He said the search for WMD in Iraq -- the main reason President Bush went to war to oust Saddam Hussein -- has been exhausted without finding such weapons. Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Detainees at Guantanamo Bay are providing the U.S. military with its best information on America's No. 1 enemy, Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror group, says a new Pentagon report. More than three years after many of the al Qaeda and Taliban fighters were captured in Afghanistan, the 550 prisoners continue to divulge new information on recently nabbed bin Laden operatives and on remotely detonated bombs killing U.S. troops in Iraq. "The Joint Task Force, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, remains the single best repository of al Qaeda information in the Department of Defense," said the recently compiled report....

A key figure in the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal has given Army investigators a lengthy sworn statement accusing others of misconduct at the Iraq prison. The statement from Pvt. Charles Graner, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., comes as the Army may file more charges in the case against personnel who supervised military police officers such as Pvt. Graner. He had first refused to talk, but later agreed under a grant of immunity. At his court-martial, prosecutors portrayed Pvt. Graner as the ringleader in a group of Reserve MPs who abused and humiliated detainees...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Military commanders say they have a better picture today than they did a year ago of the deadly insurgency in Iraq, thanks to better intelligence collection and analysis. The Pentagon estimates the enemy force at 12,000 to 20,000 fighters. It is a heterogenous grouping of Saddam Hussein loyalists, criminals and foreign terrorists led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi. A Pentagon official said there are questions about how many insurgents are hard-core fighters as opposed to "fence sitters" who might participate in an attack but then lie dormant for weeks at a time. "There are many part-timers who...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES In the privacy of their E-ring offices, senior Pentagon officials have begun to entertain thoughts that were unimaginable a year ago: Iraq is turning the corner. Military officials and analysts say the clearing out of enemy-infested Fallujah in November, the Jan. 30 elections and the increasing willingness of Iraqis to fight and die for a democratic country are contributing to the momentum. "This is still a tough fight. We don't want anyone to think that it is not," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a military analyst who strongly supports Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld....

Marine Corps 1st Lt. Ilario Pantano says he demoted the sergeant who is expected to be the chief witness against the officer, who is charged with murdering two Iraqi insurgents. Lt. Pantano's attorney, Charles Gittins, has labeled Sgt. Daniel L. Coburn a "disgruntled" Marine who had a motive for falsely accusing his client. In his first newspaper interview, Lt. Pantano said he fired Sgt. Coburn as a squad leader after the sergeant made an "unforgivable" mistake last year by failing to clear buildings in an old brick factory in Iraq's Triangle of Death. "He sat the squad down and they...

The Army says about half of 24 suspicious deaths of detainees had insufficient evidence to prove foul play or were justified homicides. Spokesmen released the breakdown after a spate of news stories appeared this week on the death toll of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army officials say some stories left the impression that all the deaths were still the subject of suspected foul play by soldiers, when they were not.

*SNIP* ......Raid on a vehicle traveling in western Baghdad .....After the raid, officials reviewed the overhead video provided by a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle used in the operation. After closely studying the video, a man was seen leaping out of the back of a van and rolling to the side of the road shortly before the vehicle was stopped. Officials think the man was Zarqawi..... *SNIP*