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Kansas Preacher Announces Plans To Protest Idaho Soldier's Funeral

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(BOISE - AP) -

The Kansas preacher who tried to erect an anti-gay monument in a Boise city park says he's coming to Idaho this week to picket the funeral of a fallen soldier.

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, says God killed Idaho National Guard Corporal Carrie French with an improvised explosive device. Phelps says God is retaliating against America for a bombing of his church six years ago.

French was a 19-year-old Caldwell High School graduate and varsity cheerleader. She was killed June 5 in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk by an improvised explosive device.

French served as an ammunition specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion.

Phelps says there is no reason he is targeting French specifically. He says his church will protest any public funeral of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Caldwell Police Chief Bob Sobba said he can't bar Phelps from going to the public funeral. It's scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the Albertson College of Idaho.