Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12300
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 888-08
October 21, 2008
Victim and Family Members To See Military Commissions Proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
The Defense Department announced today that victims of terrorist attacks and family members who lost loved ones to those attacks will be able to attend military commission proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“The Department of Defense recognizes the tragic loss and suffering that victims and family members of terrorist attacks have experienced,” said Gordon England, deputy secretary of defense. “Soon, some of those victim families will have the opportunity to see first-hand the fair, open and just trials of those alleged to have perpetrated these horrific acts.”
U.S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is an active military base with minimal visitor housing and limited transportation support. In order to be fair to all interested victims and family members, the Office of Military Commissions will use random number generation software to select five people at a time to see military commission proceedings. Each person selected may be accompanied by one family member, if desired.
In addition, the Department of Defense, with the support of the Department of Justice, is establishing closed circuit television sites in the United States for victim and family members to watch future trial proceedings.
October 27, 2008, 11:03 PM http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5676
A US counterterrorism official said Monday, Oct. 27, that American special forces killed the head of a Syrian network that funneled fighters, weapons and cash in to Iraq when they raided Abu Kemal 7 km inside Syria Sunday. The unnamed official said the raid targeted the home of Abu Ghadiyah, leader of a key cell of foreign fighters in Iraq. A villager said the US force grabbed two men and took them away by helicopter when they flew back to Iraq.
An American military official said earlier that the cross-border raid by helicopter-borne special forces at al Sukkariya near Abu Kemal in N. Syria Sunday, Oct. 26 targeted “the foreign fighter network” that travels through Syria into Iraq. In the first US comment on the incident, the anonymous spokesman hinted at more cross-border action when he said: “We are taking matters in our own hands.”
He spoke shortly after Damascus summoned the US and Iraqi envoys to protest the “serious aggression” in which 8 “civilians” were killed and 14 wounded.
Three days earlier, US commander in western Iraq, Maj. Gen. John Kelly, called the Syrian border “an uncontrolled gateway” for fighters entering Iraq. He described the borders with Saudi Arabia and Jordan as “fairly tight” and referred to US forces’ success in shutting down the “rat lines” in Iraq with help from governments in North Africa. “The one piece of the puzzle where we have not shown success on is the nexus in Syria,” Gen. Kelly said.
Counter-terror sources report he was referring to help from the Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian governments, as well as Western Europe countries hosting large North African migrants, in drying up the stream of al Qaeda’s recruits for Iraq. However, Syrian president Bashar Assad has frustrated years of US effort to shut down the network operating out of his territory.
Military sources report: This was not the first US military incursion of Syria. Previous US strikes on Syrian soil in 2004 and 2005 targeted al Qaeda exit points to Iraq and involved bombardments and clashes with Syrian border units.
These US attacks were discontinued for three years. Sunday’s operation was an extension of the US-Iraqi offensive to purge the northern Iraqi town of Mosul and northern Syria of al Qaeda elements, the jihadists’ last two strong bastions in the region.
According to eye witnesses, 8 US troops dropped by at least 2 helicopters stormed a farm house in Sukkariya and killed 8 people before flying back to Iraq. Damascus announced it held US forces responsible for “this aggression and all its repercussions.” It called on the Iraqi government to launch an immediate investigation into “this serious violation and prevent the use of Iraqi territory for aggression against Syria."
Al Qaeda fighters recently captured by the US military in and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul revealed the unabated flow of arms, fighters, cash and explosives from Syria to Iraq. The discovery belied Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem’s assurance to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice when they met in New York in September that Damascus had halted this traffic.
Abu Kemal is located opposite the al Qaim region of Iraqi Anbar. For most of the five-year Iraq war, it was al Qaeda’s main logistics base for the jihadists fighting in Anbar. Recently this province, finally cleared of terrorists, was handed over to Iraqi forces. Washington is determined not to allow the Syria rat line to destroy one of the great US achievements of the war.
Asked if the incident was compatible with Israel’s talks with Syria, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni commented: Damascus must stop aiding al Qaeda as well two other terrorist groups, Hizballah and Hamas. Political sources note that the northern Syrian operation bears strongly on the US presidential campaign 10 days before voting. Both candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, will no doubt comment and if the attacks continue and meet with Syrian reprisal, they could become a focal campaign theme.
US cross-border incursions from Afghanistan firing missiles from drones at Taliban and al Qaeda havens in Pakistan are ongoing. The latest attack took place Sunday night killing up to 20 insurgents
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http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2008/s08100179.htm
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Nun who was Gang-raped by Hindu Extremists tells her Story to the Media
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
ORISSA STATE, INDIA (ANS) — On the same day that a Roman Catholic nun was burned alive by a group of Hindu fundamentalists who stormed the orphanage she ran in the district of Bargarh (Orissa), a priest who was at the orphanage was also badly hurt, and another nun from Bubaneshwar’s Social Center was gang-raped by groups of Hindu extremists before the building housing the facility was set on fire.
The attacks followed two days of anti-Christian violence in the state of Orissa (north-east India) following the assassination of radical Hindu leader Swami Laxanananda Saraswati.
While the Catholic nun who was gang-raped in the violence in Kandhamal, Orissa on August 25, 2008 has signed a statement, which she read at a Press Conference in New Delhi, on October 24, 2008, her name is being withheld in this article to respect the Indian Supreme Court Advisory on the use of names of victims of gender violence.
In her statement to the media, the nun says that on August 24, around 4:30pm, hearing the shouting of a large crowd at the gate of Divyajyoti Pastoral Center, she ran out through the backdoor and escaped to the forest along with others.
“We saw our house going up in flames. Around 8:30 pm we came out of the forest and went to the house of a Hindu gentleman who gave us shelter.”
The nun says that on August 25, around 1:30 pm, the mob entered the room where she was staying in that house, one of them stopped her, caught her hair and pulled her out of the house.
“Two of them were holding my neck to cut off my head with an axe. Others told them to take me out to the road; I saw Fr. Chellan also being taken out and being beaten. The mob consisting of 40-50 men was armed with lathis, axes, spades, crowbars, iron-rods, sickles etc. They took both of us to the main road. Then they led us to the burned down Janavikas building saying that they were going to throw us into the smoldering fire.”
The nun stated that when they reached the Janavikas building, they threw her to the verandah on the way to the dining room, which was full of ashes and broken glass pieces.
“One of them tore my blouse and others my undergarments. Father Chellan protested and they beat him and pulled him out from there. They pulled out my saree and one of the stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me on the verandah mentioned above. When it was over, I managed to get up and put my petticoat and saree. Then another young man caught me and took me to a room near the staircase. He opened his pants and was attempting to rape me when they reached there.”
The nun says she hid under the staircase.
“The crowd was shouting ‘where is that sister, come let us rape her, at least 100 people should rape.’ They found me under the staircase and took me out to the road. There I saw Fr. Chellan was kneeling down and the crowd was beating him. They were searching for a rope to tie us both of us together to burn us in fire. Someone suggested to make us parade naked. They made us walk on the road till Nuagoan market, which was half a kilometer from there. They made us fold our hands and walk. I was with petticoat and saree as they had already torn away my blouse and undergarments. They tried to strip even there and I resisted and they went on beating me with hands on my cheeks and head and with sticks on my back several times.”
When they reached the market the market place about a dozen of OSAP policemen were there.
“I went to them asking to protect me and I sat in between two policemen but they did not move. One from the crowd again pulled out from there and they wanted to lock us in their temple mandap. The crowd led me and Fr. Chellan to the Nuagaon block building saying that they will hand us over to BDO. From there along with the block officer the mob took us to police outpost Nuagaon, other policemen remained far (away).”
The mob said that they will come back after eating and one of them who attacked her remained back in the police outpost, the nun said.
“Policemen then came to police outpost. They were talking very friendly with the man who had attacked me and stayed back. In the police outpost we remained until the inspector in charge of Balliguda with his police team came and took us to Balliguda. They were afraid to take us straight to the police station and they kept us sometimes in jeep. In the garage, from there, they brought us to the station.
“The inspector in charge and other government officers took me privately and asked whatever happened to me. I narrated everything in detail to the police, how I was attacked, raped, taken away from policemen paraded half naked and how the policemen did not help me when I asked for help while weeping bitterly. I saw the inspector writing (this) down. The inspector asked me ‘are you interested in filing FIR? Do you know what will be the consequence?’ At about 10:00 pm I was taken for medical check-up accompanied by a lady police officer to Balliguda Hospital. They were afraid to keep us in police station, saying the mob may attack police station. So the police took us to the IB (Inspection Bungalow) where CRP men were camping.”
On August 26 around 9:00 am, the two Catholics were taken to Balliguda police station.
“When I was writing the FIR, the I I C asked me to hurry up and not to write in detail. When I started writing about the police, the I I C told me ‘this is not the way to write FIR, make it short.’ So I re-wrote it for the third time in one and half pages. I filed the FIR, but I was not given a copy of it,” the nun explained.
At around 4:00 pm the inspector in charge of Balliguda police station along with some other government officers put the two Catholics in the OSRTC bus to Bhubaneswar along with other stranded passengers. Police were there till Rangamati where all passengers had their supper.
“After that I did not see the police. We got down near Nayagarh and traveled in a private vehicle and reached Bhubaneswar around 2:00 am on August 27,” she said.
The nun concluded: “State Police failed to stop the crimes, failed to protect me from the attackers, they were friendly with the attackers.”
She said the police tried their best to say that it was best that she did not register an FIR, and not make complaints against police. She added that the police did not take down her statement as she narrated in detail and they abandoned her half of the way.
“I was raped and now I don’t want to be victimized by the Orissa police. I want a CBI enquiry.”
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Michael Ireland, Chief Correspondent of ANS, is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. Michael has traveled to Albania and the former Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany and the former Czechoslovakia, Israel,and Canada. He has reported for ANS from Jordan, China, Russia, Jamaica, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Michael’s involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department — Michael Ireland Media Missionary (MIMM) — of A.C.T. International at: Artists in Christian Testimony (A.C.T.) International.
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.