Free Republic

SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON: A US official identified as Michael Furlong organised a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the purpose of finding and killing suspected militants, The New York Times reported Monday. Citing unnamed military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States, the newspaper said Furlong, who works for the Defence Department, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and Special Forces members. These people gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, the report said. After that, the information was sent to military units and intelligence...

Those critics now include the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which said Monday it had revoked Blackwater's license to operate following a chaotic weekend shootout that Iraqi authorities say left eight civilians dead and 13 injured. ``The 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire,'' company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said late Monday. ``Blackwater regrets any loss of life, but this convoy was violently attacked by armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job to defend human life.'' ``The Blackwater guys are not fools,'' Pelton said. ``If they were gunning down...

Adventure Magazine Reporter Recounts Ten-Day Kidnapping by Colombian Death Squad While on assignment for National Geographic Adventure, contributing editor Robert Young Pelton, along with two traveling companions, Mark Wedeven and Megan Smaker, was kidnapped on January 14th by a right-wing paramilitary group in Panama's Darién Gap. The Bloque Elmer Cardenas, a splinter group of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, released Pelton and the two young backpackers last Thursday after holding the trio captive for ten days in the jungle borderland between Panama and Colombia. Pelton finally returned home to Redondo Beach, California, last night. Pelton, author...

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jul 12, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A judge on Friday rejected a freelance reporter's effort to avoid testifying about his videotaped interview with American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan last year. U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III ruled that journalists don't enjoy a First Amendment privilege to avoid testifying except in very limited circumstances involving protection of confidential sources or harassment. His ruling means that for the time being freelance reporter Robert Pelton is required to testify next week at Lindh's pretrial hearing. While refusing to grant Pelton's request to reverse his subpoena,...