Operation Phantom Fury--Day 215 - Now Operations River Blitz; Matador--Day 110

Various Media Outlets | 6/10/05

[TexKat]

Between bombs and incoming shells, tanning and `Star Wars' offer soldiers respite from war

Posted on Fri, Jun. 10, 2005

ANTONIO CASTANEDA Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - One young man cannonballed into the cool blue pool, another applied suntan lotion to his girlfriend's shoulders - and a third swung his machine gun onto a lawn chair. A pair of Black Hawk helicopters hovered above.

U.S. Army Pfc. Stephen Thomas of Gainsville, Florida jumps into the swimming pool at Camp Victory, in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, June 7, 2005. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Bryan Ebeling of Lafayette, Louisiana applies suntan lotion to his girlfriend, Sgt. Jeanne Crochet also of Lafayette, Louisiana at the swimming pool at Camp Victory, in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, June 7, 2005. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

The men and women could have passed for American college students, but they were U.S. soldiers at Camp Liberty in western Baghdad, seeking a break from the war raging just beyond the blast walls. Hours later, some would don helmets and flak jackets, jump into armored vehicles and patrol through violent Baghdad neighborhoods.

Iraqi's look an US tank rolling through south Baghdad. Eleven executed bodies have been found near the Iraqi desert town of Al-Qaim, bringing to 17 the number of corpses found in the Sunni Arab insurgent bastion hard by the Syrian border.(AFP/Yuri Cortez)

"When I come here I don't feel like I'm in Iraq," said Sgt. Jeanne Crochet, a nurse in the 256th Brigade of the Louisiana National Guard, who sat next to her suntanning boyfriend, Sgt. Bryan Ebeling, as Jimmy Buffett tunes played in the background. "I don't complain much about living conditions."

In this war, troops - particularly infantrymen who regularly patrol and conduct raids - struggle to relax and get away from the violence that relentlessly creeps up on them. Even inside bases such as Camp Liberty that stretch for miles, insurgents continue to kill and injure soldiers by launching mortars and rockets over fortified walls.

Just last week word flashed through the camp of a big-screen showing of the new Star Wars movie, generating a flood of excitement.

But then insurgents fired a rocket into the base, slamming close to shops and fast-food eateries where the movie was to be shown, killing one soldier.

"The soldiers came in and yelled, 'Save yourselves and run to the bunker,'" remembered Jericho Aquino, a Filipino worker at the Cinnabon dessert shop close to where the rocket struck.

Future screenings were canceled.

But the U.S. military has brought other slices of Americana to this dusty complex of white trailers and palaces once used by Saddam Hussein.

A Burger King and Pizza Hut compliment a dining hall that can compete with most corporate dining facilities - lobster and a dozen desserts are often on menu - and a local store resembles a major retail outlet, complete with rows of CDs, DVDs, and big screen TVs.

Some soldiers relax over video games or bootleg DVDs on their laptops. Others look forward to seeing celebrities. A recent visitor was actor Vince Vaughn, a local favorite.

But the most popular venue on base may be the palace pools where soldiers lie in the sun or swim with friends, ignoring the occasional explosion that reverberates in the distance. In one pool in a man-made lagoon jutting into a pond, soldiers preparing to return to the U.S. relaxed and looked back on their year in Iraq.

"It was frustrating sometimes. It was like we were fighting ghosts," said Sgt. Wayne Brekke, of Aloha, Ore., a combat engineer assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division. Brekke said it was difficult to fight hidden insurgents who detonated roadside bombs by phone or sporadically fired from neighborhoods that they could quickly blend into.

Most of the soldiers said their work had a positive impact in the capital, pointing to areas such as Haifa Street where attacks have been reduced. But the war that continued throughout the city was fresh in many minds - Brekke's unit suffered casualties on their last two patrols, including one attack that was videotaped by militants and later posted on their Web site.

"It was mentally and physically exhausting, especially in this heat," said Brekke, two days before a flight was scheduled take him away from his 12-hour Baghdad patrol shifts and fly him to Kuwait and then to California. "You never knew when something was going to happen."

The soldiers knew the burden of a yearlong deployment was at an end and looked forward to vacation plans long in the making. "I'm going to Vegas, man," Brekke said.

[TexKat]

US forces bomb insurgent hideouts in Heit

BAGHDAD, June 10 (KUNA) -- US warplanes on Friday bombed a number of locations suspected to be hideouts for insurgents in the town of Heit in the western Anbar Province.

Eyewitnesses said that severe clashes have been going around the town since Thursday night, noting that the US forces have cordoned off the town.

They added that the US warplanes fired missiles on some locations in the city that is suspected of hosting some gunmen, who infiltrated from the town of Qa'em on the Iraqi-Syrian borders.

So far, no reports were available on losses among civilians or gunmen, while the US forces did not comment on the operation.

[TexKat]

IRAQ: BORDER INFILTRATION FROM SAUDI ARABIA

Baghdad, 10 June (AKI) - Iraqi guards along the border with Saudi Arabia stopped 275 people from trying to enter the country illegally in the month of April, according to security sources quoted by Radio Sawa. The report on the US-funded radio said that only 25 of those apprehended were Saudi citizens and the majority were of other Arab nationalities. The border guards reported on Friday that they had broken up a drug smuggling gang in the area and seized a large quantity of drugs.

[anonymoussierra]

Thank you BE STRONG AMERICA GOOD COUNTRY!!!!!

[blackie]

Thank you Sara ~ good stuff!

[Gucho]

KFBK Sacramento Radio

Talking about Lodi suspects.

[TexKat]

Martinez Wants Focus On Latin America, Discouraged By Iraq War

POSTED: 1:32 pm EDT June 10, 2005

KEY WEST, Fla. -- Sen. Mel Martinez criticized the Bush administration and Congress on Friday for paying little attention to growing Latin American problems and lamented the slow progress in Iraq.

While Martinez said the administration is increasingly aware that it needs to pay more attention to Latin America, he said it should have been a focus from the start, given instability in countries like Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti.

"The administration has been very remiss for the last four years in its direction toward Latin America to their great consternation now," said Martinez, R-Fla. "There is a growing recognition of the administration and in Congress that we have not been paying enough attention to a region that's really in trouble."

Martinez, speaking at the annual Florida Society of Newspaper Editors/Florida Press Association convention, said problems have reached the point where urgent action is needed by the United States.

"We have tremendous problems in Bolivia right now. It's a crisis situation. So is Ecuador, in a little more latent way," Martinez said. "And clearly Venezuela, in partnership with Cuba, are creating a lot of problems for stability, for democracy, for the rule of law. And I think that's going to spill over into the upcoming elections in Central America."

The U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti hasn't been doing its job, Martinez said, expressing concerns that there could be problems with upcoming elections there.

"I'm anxious to go to Haiti. What a basket case it is," Martinez said. "We need for those elections not to be a setback. They're not going to be the full answer, but it can't be a setback."

Martinez, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he's planning a trip to Latin America in August and has asked fellow committee member Norm Coleman, R-Minn., for guidance on who would be truly interested in joining him.

The response, Martinez said, was "You're question is the problem. There's not that many of us."

Martinez, who strongly supported Bush's efforts in Iraq during his campaign last year, also expressed concerns about progress in the war.

"I am discouraged by how long it has taken for us to begin to draw down some forces," he said. "I would have thought by now, and I think in a clearer moment that the president and (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld would have thought that by now we would be in a position to be able to draw down some forces. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case."

He said he has had to write many condolence letters to the families of Floridians killed in Iraq.

"It brings home the importance of the decision to send men and women to go to war," he said. "It has become a foreign fighters' war against us there and the progress seems slow and difficult."

He also said the Bush administration should consider Sen. Joseph Biden's suggestion that the U.S. military's prison camp on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be shut down. Biden, D-Del., made his remarks this week in the wake of a Pentagon report that detailed incidents in which U.S. guards desecrated the Quran.

Last month, Amnesty International called the detention center for alleged terrorists "the gulag of our time."

"It's become an icon for bad stories and at some point you wonder the cost-benefit ratio," Martinez said. "How much do you get out of having that facility there, is it serving all the purposes you thought it would serve when initially you began it, or can this be done some other way a little better?"

[TexKat]

278th Soldier Dies In Iraq; Death Not Combat-Related

By: By BILL JONES/Staff Writer 
Source: The Greeneville Sun 
06-10-2005  

A Tennessee Army National Guardsman from Erwin has died, apparently of natural causes, while serving in Iraq.

“Unfortunately, I can confirm that Staff Sgt. Mark Oscar Edwards did die yesterday morning in his sleep,” Lt. Col. Frank McCauley, commander of the 278th Regimental Combat Team’s 2nd Squadron, wrote via electronic mail from Iraq in response to a Greeneville Sun inquiry this morning.

“He was a tank commander assigned to Company H, 2/278 Regimental Combat Team. He was 40 years old. Until I speak with his wife, it wouldn’t be proper to release any further details.

“He was a fine soldier and friend to me and all his fellow soldiers, and we will miss him greatly.”

Staff Sgt. Edwards is the fourth Tennessee Army National Guardsman assigned to the 278th Regimental Combat Team to die in Iraq this year.

The other three died in combat-related incidents, but Staff Sgt. Edwards’ death apparently was not combat-related.

The Tennessee Army National Guard’s 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, which includes units in Bristol, Erwin, Greeneville, Kingsport, Jefferson City, Pigeon Forge and Rogersville in Northeast Tennessee, was called to active duty in June 2004.

After several months of intensive training at Camp Shelby, Miss., and Fort Irwin, Calif., last year, the unit was augmented by other National Guard units from Texas, Wisconsin and other states and sent to Iraq designated as the 278th Regimental Combat Team.

Most of the 2nd Squadron of the 278th RCT has been assigned to an area of northeastern Iraq since late last year.

The first 278th soldier to die in Iraq was Sgt. Paul W. Thomason III, a member of Greeneville-based Troop G. A Sevier County native, Thomason lived in Jefferson City with his wife and five children prior to the 278th’s call to active duty last year.

He was killed in March, when a roadside bomb detonated as the military truck in which he was a passenger traveled along an Iraqi roadway.

Two other 278th soldiers from the Knoxville area have since been killed in separate incidents in Iraq.

[TexKat]

12-year-old Danny McDougall plays the National Anthem on his electric guitar Thursday.

Anthem A Tribute To Student's Brother In Iraq

June 10, 2005

(LEWISTON - Autumn Coleman) - A Whitman Elementary student has paid a special tribute to his brother who is fighting in Iraq.

12-year-old Danny McDougall played the National Anthem at the school's end-of-the-year assembly Thursday. The 6th grader has a very special reason for learning the song.

"My brother. He's in Iraq and he asked me to learn it before he got back," said Danny. "So, I learned it for him."

Danny's uncle gave him the guitar for Christmas and Danny's been practicing ever since. Danny's mom said she is extremely proud of his dedication to learning the Anthem.

"Danny's very nervous," said Molly McDougall before the assembly. "Danny's very bashful, so it's one of those things. It's the first time ever in a group type of thing. But, he's going to come through okay. It's for this brother. He adores his brother."

Danny's brother John is serving with the National Guard's 116th Engineer Battalion. Danny said he thinks about his brother and the troops when he's playing. Danny even wore a battle dress uniform to honor them.

"My brother gave it to me when he was home from Louisiana and Texas," he said. "He gave it to me and it's really special to me, so I wore it."

Danny received a roar of applause after his performance. The aspiring musician said he'll fall back on aspirations of being a heart surgeon if music doesn't work out.

Danny was diagnosed with traveling juvenile rheumatoid arthritis two years ago, which left him with a hole in his heart. Danny's heart has since healed.

And it seems that he has one of the biggest hearts around.

[TexKat]

Marine Update:

Local Marines killed in Iraq

UPDATED: Friday, June 10, 2005 6:50:57 PM

CLEVELAND – Another deadly day for U.S. forces hits close to home.

Five Marines have been killed in a roadside bombing northwest of Baghdad - three of them are from an Akron unit.

The dead are listed as 23-year-old Lance Corporal Thomas Keeling of Strongsville, 21-year-old Lance Corporal Devon Seymour of Saint Louisville, near Columbus and 26-year-old Corporal Brad Squires of Northfield.

All were assigned to the Marine Force Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division in Akron.

[TexKat]

U.S. expands its fight on terrorists in Africa

WASHINGTON A growing number of Islamic militants from northern and sub-Saharan Africa are fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Iraq, fueling the insurgency with foot soldiers and some financing, U.S. military officials say.

About 25 percent of the nearly 400 foreign fighters captured in Iraq come from Africa, according to the military's European Command, which oversees military operations in most of the African continent.

Some recruits have joined the network of the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which has carried out many of the sophisticated attacks and suicide car-bombings that have killed hundreds of Iraqis in the past several weeks, the officials said.

A small vanguard of veterans are also returning home to countries like Morocco and Algeria, poised to use skills they learned on the battlefield in Iraq, from bomb making to battle planning, against their native governments, the officials said.

To combat the immediate threat and to prevent terrorists from gaining new safe havens in the region, the Bush administration is expanding a small military training program that has operated on a shoestring the past two years into something more ambitious and spending $100 million annually for airport security, money-handling controls, school construction and other assistance to nine African nations.

As part of this broader strategy, the United States on Monday began training exercises in Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Niger and Algeria. Four other countries - Senegal, Nigeria, Tunisia and Morocco - will also participate by the time the exercises finish in two weeks. About 1,000 U.S. troops, including 700 special operations forces, will train 3,000 African soldiers in marksmanship and border patrol and airborne operations.

"For a change, we're trying to get ahead of the power curve in a region that we believe is susceptible to use by terrorists," Theresa Whelan, the Pentagon's top Africa policy official, said. "It's a deterrent."

U.S. military and intelligence officials say vast swaths of the Sahara, from Mauritania in the west to Sudan in the east, which have been smuggling routes for centuries, are becoming areas of operation for terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, which has quietly stepped up its recruiting efforts in the region.

The countries there are some of the poorest in the world and have scant resources to monitor their borders or patrol the large remote areas of their interiors, where drug smugglers, weapons traffickers and terrorists have established land routes since routes in the Mediterranean started being patrolled more intensively.

"Al Qaeda is assessing local groups for franchising opportunities," said Major General Richard Zahner, chief intelligence officer for the European Command, who will assume that post for the military headquarters in Iraq this summer. "I'm quite concerned about that."

Among the local terrorist groups is the Salafist Group in Algeria, which abducted 32 European tourists in early 2003. On Tuesday, the group claimed responsibility for a surprise attack last Saturday against an isolated Mauritanian Army outpost that left 15 Mauritanians and 9 insurgents dead. The group said in a message posted on a Web site in Arabic that the assault was a direct response to the training exercises that were "put in place by the enemy of God, America, and its agents in the region," The Associated Press reported.

U.S. military officers and defense officials, who spoke in authorized interviews but on the condition of anonymity, citing security considerations when they travel overseas, said the number of African militants and the funds they have provided for the fighting in Iraq - between $10,000 and $100,000 - is not large compared with support from countries like Syria or Saudi Arabia. "But it allows those elements to get in and be players," one officer said.

Not all northern African militants turning up in Iraq belong to a group like Salafist or the Moroccan Islamist Combatant Group. But the skills they learn and the connections they make with other insurgents there is making Iraq a training ground and networking hub for terrorists, these officials say.

"They're getting to use those training skills, hone them and eventually go somewhere else and use them," one defense official said. "The bottom line is you've developed a new extremist. It doesn't paint a pretty picture down the road."

Thom Shanker contributed reporting.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Story here again.

[TexKat]

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan gestures while speaking during a news conference at the United Nations, Thursday June 9, 2005. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Annan Sending U.N. Team to Lebanon

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending a U.N. team back to Lebanon to check reports that Syrian intelligence officials may still be operating in the country, a U.N. official said Friday.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Annan told members of the Security Council "that he intends to send a verification team back to Lebanon, but at this point no date has been set."

Annan said Thursday that he was considering returning the verification team because he had received reports that Syrian intelligence "elements" may be in Lebanon.

The United States has been pressing for the team's return, and President Bush said Friday he was disturbed by reports that Syrian intelligence was operating in Lebanon in violation of a Security Council resolution.

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad called the U.S. accusations "a smear campaign" and insisted all Syrian intelligence operatives had been withdrawn from Lebanon.

Mekdad said the anti-Syria campaign reflects U.S. displeasure at the results of recent elections in Lebanon and is an attempt "to deepen differences between different Lebanese forces, and to create problems for a constructive relationship between Syria and Lebanon."

In comments clearly aimed at the Bush administration, Mekdad told The Associated Press in an interview that "certain circles" want "to kill" the verification team's recent report on Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon.

Mekdad said the report "confirmed that Syria has fully withdrawn its troops, intelligence and assets." Syrian troops entered Lebanon in 1976 after the start of that country's civil war.

However, the report said the team could not "conclude with certainty that all the intelligence apparatus has been withdrawn" because "intelligence activities are by nature often clandestine."

"I think what the report said on the nature of these operations is correct," Mekdad said. "We want the team to ensure us if there are no other intelligence services in Lebanon. But what we are sure of in Syria is that we have withdrawn everybody."

Head of Lebanese press syndicate Mohamed Baalbaki holds a flower with photograph of slain anti-Syrian Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir at the site of the assassination in Beirut June 9, 2005. Photo by Jamal Saidi/Reuters

U.S. alleges Syria targeting Lebanese leaders

Fri Jun 10, 2005 04:58 PM ET By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Friday he was disturbed by reports of covert Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs and the White House charged that it had information that Damascus had drawn up an assassination hit list targeting Lebanese political leaders.

"Obviously we're going to follow up on these troubling reports, and we expect the Syrian government to follow up on these troubling reports," Bush told reporters.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said afterward that Washington had received information about a "Syrian hit list targeting key Lebanese public figures of various political and religious persuasions, for assassination."

Lebanon's anti-Syrian Druze leader has also alleged that Syrian intelligence officers are running free in the country and warned of more political assassinations ordered by Damascus.

Syrian Expatriates Minister Buthaina Shaaban, who often speaks for the government, countered that Syria had completely withdrawn from Lebanon and denied that Damascus had drawn up an assassination hit list in Lebanon.

"Syria never had a history of hit lists ... I think they should look somewhere else unless they want to use this as a pretext to target Syria without finding any proof," she said.

"The killings in Lebanon are as much dangerous for Syria than they are for Lebanon and therefore it is impossible for Syria to contemplate such a thing," she told CNN, speaking in English.

McClellan said Washington's allegations were based on intelligence "that we have seen."

McClellan said the United States has been receiving Syrian "hit list" reports for some time. He said they "resurfaced" with the killing of anti-Syrian columnist Samir Kassir last week. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in February.

A senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the information came from "a variety of credible Lebanese sources."

After an Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Bush called for Syria "to not only remove her military but to remove intelligence officers as well" from neighboring Lebanon.

McClellan said the United States wanted Lebanon's elections to proceed "in a free and fair manner without any outside interference or intimidation."

Lebanon's elections, the first in three decades without a Syrian military presence, are being held in different regions over four weeks from May 29 to June 19.

"We strongly believe that Syria's covert intelligence apparatus in Lebanon is destabilizing to the country and creates an environment in which violence and intimidation are encouraged and become possible," McClellan said. "They need to stop meddling inside Lebanon and stop meddling in Lebanon's internal affairs."

Washington has also accused Damascus of supporting anti-Israeli groups, and of failing to keep anti-American insurgents from crossing the Iraq border.

The White House welcomed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's decision to send a U.N. verification team back to Lebanon to see if Syrian intelligence agents are still in the country.

"We want to see them there through the period of the elections and the Cabinet formation in order to better clarify reports of Syria's continued intelligence presence and to deter any further efforts to derail the democratic process that is under way," McClellan said.

The United States has kept up pressure on Damascus since Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon.

On Thursday, the Bush administration ordered U.S. banks to freeze the assets of a Syrian-based company and two of its officials whom it accused of providing military equipment to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Last week, Bush administration officials asked the European Union to hold off on signing a trade and aid pact with Damascus. Bush imposed economic sanctions last year.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland)

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

[Gucho]

COUNTERTERRORISM — U.S. President George W. Bush discusses the Patriot Act at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Va., June 10, 2005. "We're not only finding people and bringing them to justice, we're shutting down their sources for money," said the President of the Patriot Act. (White House photo by Eric Draper)

[TexKat]

Father of soldier killed in action sues magazine

MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) -- The father of an Oklahoma National Guard member who was killed in Iraq is suing a magazine for publishing a photo of his son in an open casket.

Robert Showler of Wagoner is suing Harper's Magazine for 75-thousand dollars in actual damages and for unspecified punitive damages for photographing the body of his son, Army Specialist Kyle Brinlee of Pryor.

Brinlee was killed by a land mine in May 2004 and was posthumously promoted to Sergeant. He was the first Oklahoma National Guard member to die in combat since the Korean War.

The photo shows Brinlee's body in an open casket in the Pryor High School auditorium during a service and appeared in the August edition of Harper's.

An attorney for Harper's declined comment, but has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion says Showler gave up parental rights in 1993 when Brinlee was adopted by the husband of Brinlee's biological mother.

[TexKat]

One thousand military experts from the United States are training soldiers from nine West African countries as U.S. fears grow that an Algerian militant group allied to al Qaeda is broadening its base in the region. The exercise, meant to help stem weapons smuggling and stop militants finding havens around the Sahara desert, began this week in Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria and Mauritania, where an Islamic fundamentalist group killed 15 soldiers last week. File photo shows U.S. special forces training Malian soldiers in Timbuktu, on the fringe of the Sahara desert March 18, 2003. Photo by Luc Gnago/Reuters

U.S. army trains Africans to fight desert militants

Saturday 11.06.2005, CET 01:59

By Nick Tattersall

DAKAR (Reuters) - One thousand military experts from the United States are training soldiers from nine West African countries as U.S. fears grow that an Algerian militant group allied to al Qaeda is broadening its base in the region.

The exercise, meant to help stem weapons smuggling and stop militants finding havens around the Sahara desert, began this week in Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria and Mauritania, where an Islamic fundamentalist group killed 15 soldiers last week.

A posting on an Islamist Web site said Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) carried out the dawn raid on a remote Mauritanian military post, the first time the GSPC has claimed responsibility for an attack outside its homeland.

The attack near Mauritania's border with Mali and Algeria surprised some U.S. military observers who believed the GSPC had been largely contained and raised fears the group was increasingly ready to strike out into new territory.

"Now they've added Mauritania to their list, so this is another notch on the belt. They're broadening their base... they've got more bona fide as a trans-national organization," said a U.S. military official who closely follows the region.

"We've stood up and said we're going to fix the problem and they've stood up and said we are the problem. So it's going to be an interesting race to see who comes out on top."

The U.S. European Command (EUCOM) is running the joint military training, known as Operation Flintlock and planned before the Mauritania attack. It aims to help countries plan and execute their own counter-terrorism strategies as well as peacekeeping, humanitarian and disaster relief operations.

Around 3,000 African soldiers will be schooled in basics such as marksmanship, small-unit tactics and land navigation as well as airborne operations and human rights law.

OIL AND COUNTER-TERRORISM

The Sahara is infamous for banditry but the world's top energy consumer also fears Islamic extremists, civil war, political anarchy and piracy near the Gulf of Guinea, which it hopes will supply a quarter of its oil imports within a decade.

As part of Flintlock, Senegal will host an exercise with soldiers from nine countries, including Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia, in which they will jointly solve a terrorism scenario.

"In the past the focus has been within their own borders. Now the focus is much more regional," EUCOM's Major Holly Silkman said on Friday.

Flintlock aims to build on training by U.S. Marines and Special Forces last year in the deserts of Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania, part of a Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorist Initiative (TSCTI) expected to cost the United States $100 million over five years.

One thousand military experts from the United States are training soldiers from nine West African countries as U.S. fears grow that an Algerian militant group allied to al Qaeda is broadening its base in the region. The exercise, meant to help stem weapons smuggling and stop militants finding havens around the Sahara desert, began this week in Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria and Mauritania, where an Islamic fundamentalist group killed 15 soldiers last week. File photo shows Malian soldiers training during exercises under U.S. supervision near the Malian desert city of Timbuktu, March 17, 2004. Photo by Luc Gnago/Reuters

Some U.S. officials privately acknowledge the main concern is protecting Nigeria, the continent's biggest oil producer, the region's only OPEC member and the main destination for U.S. investment in sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa.

But critics say Washington's increasingly high-profile involvement in security in West Africa risks fueling a growing resentment of U.S. foreign policy and radicalizing some in a region largely known for moderate forms of Islam. Think-tank International Crisis Group has cautioned that a military policy which offers no alternative livelihoods to already marginalized nomadic populations in countries around the Sahara risks exacerbating the threat Washington wants to curb.

(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan in Berlin)

[TexKat]

U.S. Citizen Trained at Terror Camp in Pakistan

Globalterroralert.com (6/8/05): The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested a Pakistani-American father and son living in California after the son admitted to attending an alleged Al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan.According to an FBI affidavit filed in the case , the younger man admitted to attending a "jihadist training camp" in Pakistan for six months during 2003-2004. The son allegedly told the FBI that the camp was "run by Al-Qaeda" and that weapons instructors at the camp used photos of "high ranking U.S. political figures"--including President Bush--as suggested targets. Since 2002, several suspected terrorist training camps affiliated with Al-Qaida have surfaced along the Pakistani-Afghan border in Waziristan.

[Gucho]

FBI: Terror Probe Has Been Under Way For Years

Several People In Lodi With Alleged Qaeda Ties

Jun 10, 2005 7:46 pm US/Eastern

SACRAMENTO (AP) Federal authorities aren't saying much about their terrorism investigation in nearby Lodi but are making two things clear: Their work in the farming town has been going on for years -- and it's not over yet.

They denied the implication by some members of Lodi's large Pakistani community that the probe was triggered by a rift between fundamentalist and mainstream factions.

Each side accused the other of contacting the FBI, which is in charge of the investigation. The dispute has led to a leadership struggle at the Lodi Muslim Mosque and a legal fight with a budding Islamic learning center.

"This specific investigation has been going on for several years," FBI spokesman John Cauthen said Thursday.

The FBI alleges several people committed to al-Qaida have been operating in and around the tranquil wine-growing region just south of Sacramento.

Investigators say Hamid Hayat, 22, trained with al-Qaida in Pakistan and planned to attack hospitals and supermarkets in the United States.

A Sacramento federal judge denied bail to Hayat Friday, saying he had "a motive to flee and certainly the means to flee."

U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter A. Nowinski had also denied bail on Tuesday to Hayat's father, Umer, 47.

Umer Hayat has said his son was drawn to jihadist training camps in his early teenage years while attending a madrassah, or religious school, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, that was operated by Umer Hayat's father-in-law, according to an FBI affidavit.

Hayat allegedly paid for his son to attend the terrorist camp in 2003 and 2004. The affidavit says it was run by a friend of his father-in-law's.

The Hayats are charged only with lying to federal investigators.

Two Islamic religious leaders, or imams, and one leader's son also have been detained on immigration violations. Neither Cauthen nor a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would reveal specifics of the alleged visa violations.

Saad Ahmad, an attorney for the three men, did not immediately return a telephone call Thursday seeking comment.

The sequence that led to the arrests and detentions began May 29, when Hamid Hayat was trying to return to the U.S. but was identified in mid-flight as being on the federal "no-fly" list. His plane was diverted to Japan, where Hayat was interviewed by the FBI and denied any connection to terrorism.

He was allowed to fly to California, but was interviewed again last weekend. He and his father were charged after he flunked a lie detector test and then admitted attending the training camp, the affidavit said.

The Hayats and the imams are on opposite sides of a struggle between Pakistani factions in and around Lodi: The Hayats are aligned with a faction supporting more traditional Islamic values; the imams with another group seeking greater cooperation and understanding from the larger community.

Adil Khan was trying to start an Islamic center but has been sued by the Lodi Muslim Mosque, which claims he improperly transferred mosque property.

"It may well be that some of this is gamesmanship," said attorney Gary Nelson, who represents Khan in the civil lawsuit. "But we are talking about the FBI and INS, and they don't do this lightly. At least I hope they don't."

Lawyers for the Hayats are questioning why the FBI changed the affidavit. They maintain that copies released in Washington and Sacramento are significantly different.

The Washington version, released first, said Hamid Hayat chose to carry out his "jihadi mission" in the United States and potential targets included "hospitals and large food stores." The reference to the targets was dropped in a later version filed in federal court in Sacramento.

Hamid Hayat's attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, said that revision "strikes us as an odd turnabout."

Umer Hayat's attorney, Johnny Griffin III, said he was irritated that the government made public the references to hospitals and supermarkets, and then filed something different with the court.

Cauthen described the changes as routine revisions. Authorities said they had no indication of specific plans or timetables for an attack.

"There is no specific information about hospitals and food stores," he said. "They didn't stand out above other sectors of the infrastructure."

[Gucho]

Brazil to Buy Used War Planes From France

The Associated Press
Published: Jun 10, 2005

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Brazil is negotiating to buy 12 used jet fighters from France to replace aging planes on its fleet, Brazil's defense minister said Friday.

The transaction, reportedly worth nearly US$60 million (euro50 million), is expected to be finalized when Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visits France in July, Brazil's Defense Minister and Vice President Jose Alencar told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, Brazil's largest.

The planes, Mirages 2000-C still in use by the French air force, will replace 20 Mirage IIIEBr which have been used by Brazil for more than 30 years.

Brazil recently canceled a US$700 million (euro540 million) plan to purchase between 12 and 24 new jet fighters to replace its fleet, opting to purchase used airplanes instead.

AP-ES-06-10-05 1959EDT

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBFX9Z2T9E.html

[TexKat]

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