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For those interested, here's the entire article; it includes summaries of other stories (which I redacted) in the excerpt for this post.

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Copyright 2003 Valley Daily Bulletin
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA)
April 4, 2003 Friday
LENGTH: 813 words

HEADLINE: First American journalist killed 2-deck hed two lines

BODY:
KUWAIT CITY An American journalist was killed Thursday night when the Humvee he was traveling in rolled into a canal just south of the Baghdad airport.

The soldier driving the Humvee was also killed.

The journalist, Michael Kelly, 46, was the editor at largeof The Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for The Washington Post.

He was the first American journalist killed in the war.

Kelly had also worked at The New Republic and NationalJournal, and he covered the 1992 presidential campaign for The New York Times.

While Kelly was the first American journalist to die in theconflict, he is the fifth journalist to die since the war started 17 days ago. . Two others are missing.

Kelly, one of 600 reporters traveling with coalition forces,was with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division when the Humvee came under fire from Iraqi infantry armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, said Col. William F. Grimsley. The driver of the Humvee, who has not been identified, was trying to evade fire when the vehicle rolled into the canal, Grimsley said.

@hUB:

Soldier charged with murder in grenadeattack

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. A soldier suspected in agrenade attack at a U.S. camp in Kuwait that killed two officers has been charged with murder, the military announced Friday.

The charges against Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar, 32, were filed twodays after the March 23 incident at a 101st Airborne Division camp in Kuwait. They were disclosed in a statement from Fort Campbell, home of the 101st.

Akbar, who once lived in Moreno Valley, is the only personcharged in the attack at the command center of the 101st Division's 1st Brigade at Camp Pennsylvania. Fourteen soldiers were wounded. Days later, the 1st Brigade began moving into Iraq.

Akbar is being held at an undisclosed U.S. militaryfacility. Military lawyers assigned to represent Akbar had no comment, the military's statement said.

Dennis Olgin, a retired judge advocate general's corpsofficer, said the charges carry the death penalty.

@hUB:

Troops encounterunknown chemical items

As the military advances closer to Baghdad, signs of Iraqichemical preparedness are multiplying, although there is still no conclusive evidence Saddam Hussein's regime possesses weapons of mass destruction.

On Friday, troops at a training facility in the westernIraqi desert came across a bottle labeled "tabun" a nerve gas and chemical weapon Iraq is banned from possessing.

Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest militaryindustrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.

U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al QaQaa complex most recently on March 8 but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rdInfantry Division, said troops found thousands of 2-by-5-inch boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

@hUB:

Iraqi TV report on suicideattack to U.S forces CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar Iraqi television on Friday broadcast statements by two Iraqi women it said blew themselves up in an attack on U.S. forces, apparently in a blast that killed three American soldiers in western Iraq.

U.S. military officials said Friday that one of the womenwas pregnant; they said it was impossible to know if she voluntarily took part in the attack.

The attack happened Thursday night about 10 miles southwestof the Haditha Dam when a car exploded at a U.S. checkpoint. The site is northwest of Baghdad and about 80 miles east of the Syrian border.

The Pentagon said the three soldiers killed were members ofthe 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Benning, Ga.

"A pregnant female stepped out of the vehicle and beganscreaming in fear," a U.S. Central Command statement said. "At this point the civilian vehicle exploded, killing three coalition force members who were approaching the vehicle and wounding two others." The statement said the woman and the driver also were killed.

@hUB:

Bush, Blair to meet inNorthern Ireland

WASHINGTON President Bush and wartime ally TonyBlair will meet next week in Northern Ireland to review final-stage battle plans as well as Bush's hotly debated blueprint for postwar reconstruction.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern will join the leaders inBelfast for meetings Tuesday that also will address efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East.

Iraq will dominate their session. The leaders will get jointupdates on battle plans and achievements, and will discuss thorny issues such as the pace of deliveries of humanitarian aid to Iraqi civilians and plans for the country's postwar reconstruction.

LOAD-DATE: October 29, 2003