Libya government says its flag flies over Bani Walid

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan interim government forces said Monday they had raised the country's new flag over Bani Walid, one of the last bastions of pro-Muammar Gaddafi loyalists, but it was not yet clear if the town had been completely captured.

Along with Gaddafi's hometown Sirte, Bani Walid has been one of only two towns in Libya where there is still armed resistance to the rule of the National Transitional Council (NTC).

"We have reached the city center (of Bani Walid) and have raised the flag," Colonel Abdullah Naker, head of the Tripoli Revolutionist Council, told Reuters Sunday.

Fighters taking part in the assault on Bani Walid also told Reuters they had entered the town which is nestled into rocky hills some 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli.

Bani Walid is an ancestral home to the Warfalla, Libya's biggest and one of its most politically-influential tribes. They number about a million out of the country's six million population and were traditional supporters of Gaddafi.

Bani Walid has been under siege for weeks, with hundreds of Gaddafi loyalists dug into its steep valleys and hills resisting advancing interim government forces.

As well as the military assault, NTC officials have been negotiating with tribal leaders inside Bani Walid for its surrender.

A group claiming to represent the people of the town issued an offer of a truce to Libya's new government Monday. In return for pledging loyalty to the NTC, the tribal groups said they would take over the town, but demanded in return the NTC should withdraw its forces from the area and lift the siege.

It was not immediately clear what the government response would be to the offer, or whether the town had already been completely captured by NTC forces.

SIRTE FIGHTS ON

Meanwhile in Sirte, where Gaddafi loyalists have been under siege for weeks, there was little or no sign of NTC forces making any progress Monday.

NTC fighters maintained their bombardment of a small area where they have boxed in the remaining Gaddafi loyalist in the center of Sirte. Libya's new leaders say they will only begin the transition to democracy after they capture Sirte.

Some fighters on the ground have expressed irritation that their commanders had not ordered an advance.

A doctor for the medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Sirte has estimated 10,000 people remain trapped in the city of 75,000 residents. Many are women and children, some are sick or injured.

The often chaotic struggle for Sirte has killed scores of people, left thousands homeless and laid waste to much of what was once a showpiece Mediterranean city where Gaddafi entertained foreign leaders.

Arab League to discuss suspending Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — The Arab League has called an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss whether to suspend Syria, officials said, ramping up the pressure on Damascus to end its bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Suspension is unlikely to have a direct, tangible impact on Syria, but it would still constitute a major blow to President Bashar Assad's embattled regime by stripping Damascus of its Arab support and further deepening its isolation.

Despite the growing international chorus for an end to the crisis, Assad has shown no sign of backing down or easing his campaign to crush the 7-month-old uprising. On Sunday, security forces opened fire on a funeral for a slain activist in the east, while forces elsewhere arrested at least 44 people in the capital's suburbs in house-to-house raids Sunday and more than 900 people in the central city of Homs over the past week.

Arab League officials said the meeting Sunday in Cairo was called at the behest of several Gulf countries and aimed to pressure Assad to halt the crackdown, which the U.N. says has killed more than 3,000 people since the uprising began in mid-March.

Many Gulf states, including heavyweight Saudi Arabia, already have withdrawn their ambassadors from Syria to protest the regime's bloody response to the protests. Other Arab countries, however, have remained silent or reluctant in their criticism of the Syrian crackdown.

The suspension of an Arab League member is very rare.

The 22-member League suspended Libya's membership earlier this year after Moammar Gadhafi launched a violent crackdown on protesters there. That gave the international community a free hand to intervene with air power to target Gadhafi's forces.

The League has since reinstated Libya under the country's new leadership.

International intervention is all but out of the question in Syria. Washington and its allies have shown little appetite for stepping into another Arab nation in turmoil. There also is real concern that Assad's ouster would spread chaos around the region.

Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities. Its web of allegiances extends to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy.

About 2,000 anti-Assad protesters gathered outside the Arab League building on the edge of Cairo's Tahrir Square, the center of Egypt's uprising.

"Oh, Bashar, son of a dog, go away, Bashar!" they shouted. "Freedom is on fire. Go away, Bashar."

The newly formed opposition body known as the Syrian National Council called on the Arab League to suspend Syria's membership "until a new regime is born." It also appealed for the council to recognize it as the "sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people."

Saudi political scientist Khalid al-Dakhil said a suspension would send a powerful message.

"The Arab League silence was like a green light to the regime to continue killings. It gave a cover for the Syrian regime," he said.

One official said the Arab League will consider other measures if suspension fails to compel Syria to stop the bloodshed. He declined to elaborate. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

An Arab diplomat said League members were divided over what steps to take.

A bloc of six Gulf nations including Saudi Arabia was pushing for suspension and a recognition of the opposition Syrian national Council, he said.

Against the measures, the diplomat said, were Sudan, Algeria, Syria's neighbor Lebanon and Yemen, whose leader is also facing a serious uprising.

During a consultative meeting before the official gathering in Cairo, Arab foreign ministers all rejected foreign intervention but agreed to press the Syrian regime to present a road map for reforms and presidential elections, the diplomat said.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Meanwhile, around 7,000 people took to the streets Sunday in the eastern Syrian city of Deir el-Zour for the funeral of an activist, Ziad al-Obeidi, who was killed a day earlier. Al-Obeidi worked for the British-based Observatory for Human Rights in Syria and had been in hiding since troops stormed the city two months ago.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said security forces fired live ammunition to disperse the mourners Sunday, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

Tanks and jets: Kenyan military moves into Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Kenyan tanks, artillery and hundreds of fighters are moving through militant territory in Somalia, residents said Monday.

Fighter jets and helicopters have been flying overhead since Kenyan forces moved en masse into Somalia on Sunday. The invasion came one day after Kenyan defense officials said the country has the right to defend itself against al-Shabab militants after a string of kidnappings inside Kenya. Four Europeans have been abducted and one killed.

Witnesses in the Somali town of Dhobley on Monday said an estimated 40 Kenyan military vehicles entered the town on Sunday. Ali Abdullahi, a resident in Dhobley, said the army vehicles were towing what he described as "big guns."

No large-scale fighting has yet broken out, the residents said.

Late Sunday evening, a military helicopter crashed and caught fire inside Kenya from an apparent mechanical malfunction, a diplomat and a resident said. No civilian casualties were reported but the status of the pilots on board was not immediately known.

Kenya's government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said Kenyan troops "are pursuing al-Shabab across the border." He did not give any other details.

In response, al-Shabab, Somalia's most dangerous militant group, tried to raise the alarm in areas it controls. Residents in the town of Qoqani who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals said militants were going into homes and forcibly recruiting new fighters.

"Are you ready to live under Christians?" one al-Shabab official shouted on a militant radio station. "Get out of your homes and defend your dignity and religion. Today is the day to defend against the enemy."

A Somali government spokesman, Abdirahman Omar Osman, said his government welcomes logistical support from "our Kenyan brothers," but said Somalia did not need Kenyan troops.

"Our forces are ready to combat al-Shabab and they are doing so effectively. They are ready at the borders, so sending troops is not needed," Osman said.

The helicopter crashed in Liboi, a town about 10 miles (20 kilometers) from the Kenya-Somalia border. The Liboi resident asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. The diplomat's employer does not allow him to be identified.

Mutua and Kenya's military spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Kenyan troops have frequently crossed the border into Somalia, but Sunday's push appears to be a bigger and more concerted effort. Minister of Internal Security George Saitoti told a news conference on Saturday that Kenyan forces would pursue al-Shabab into Somalia.

"For the first time our country is threatened with the most serious level of terrorism," he said.

The public declaration to attack al-Shabab came two days after armed militants kidnapped two Spanish aid workers with the group Doctors Without Borders from the Dadaab refugee camp, a sprawling expanse of temporary homes where almost 500,000 Somalis live. The population of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, has swelled by tens of thousands in recent months because of Somalia's famine.

On Oct. 1, Somali gunmen took a wheelchair-bound Frenchwoman from her home near the resort town of Lamu. Somalis also abducted a British woman from a Kenyan coastal resort in September. Her husband was killed in the attack.

Kenya's push north into Somalia will open another front that Somali militants must contend with. African Union forces from Uganda and Burundi have expanded their control of Mogadishu in recent months and have almost completely forced al-Shabab out of the capital

France: Math teacher immolates herself at school

MONTPELLIER, France (AP) — A high school math teacher in southern France sprayed herself with a flammable product and set herself alight in the schoolyard during recess Thursday, France's education minister said.

The motives behind the incident, which took place early Thursday in the Mediterranean city of Beziers, were not immediately clear.

The teacher, whose name has not been released, was flown via helicopter to nearby Montpellier and hospitalized with serious burns.

"I saw a person who was running and on fire. it was a human torch," said Dolores Roques, a fellow teacher at the school, on France-Info radio. "I didn't believe my eyes. It seemed unreal. The students were screaming everywhere."

Education Minister Luc Chatel visited the hospital, and said a psychological support unit would be set up in the school.

Chatel said her health "is extremely worrying." Speaking on RTL radio, he described her as a "teacher who is in a situation of great fragility" who has been undergoing medical and professional help and that an investigation would help determine the reasons for her "desperate act."

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

"Tavarez was ... was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case," he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.

"I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

He made clear he wasn't about to pass off the two legit arrests he had made in the bar to Tavarez.

"As a detective, you still have a number to reach while you are in the narcotics division," he said.

NYPD officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Anderson worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics squads and was called to the stand at Arbeeny's bench trial to show the illegal conduct wasn't limited to a single squad.

"Did you observe with some frequency this ... practice which is taking someone who was seemingly not guilty of a crime and laying the drugs on them?" Justice Gustin Reichbach asked Anderson.

"Yes, multiple times," he replied.

The judge pressed Anderson on whether he ever gave a thought to the damage he was inflicting on the innocent.

"It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators," he said.

"It's almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they're going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway."

The city paid $300,000 to settle a false arrest suit by Jose Colon and his brother Maximo, who were falsely arrested by Anderson and Tavarez. A surveillance tape inside the bar showed they had been framed.

A federal judge presiding over the suit said the NYPD's plagued by "widespread falsification" by arresting officers.

U.S. drone kills cleric in Yemen

2 Americans with links to al-Qaida recruiting targeted in 'milestone' attack
Saturday, October 01, 2011
By Adam Baron, Jonathan S. Landay and Lesley Clark, McClatchy Newspapers
SANAA, Yemen -- The death of U.S.-born Muslim preacher Anwar al-Awlaki in a barrage of missiles fired by U.S. drones over Yemen on Friday dealt a sharp blow to al-Qaida's recruiting efforts, but it's likely to do little to crimp the group's ability to carry out attacks.

President Barack Obama, who authorized the killing of the American-born Mr. Awlaki last year, hailed his death as "another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates."

"This is further proof that al-Qaida and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world," Mr. Obama said, labeling Mr. Awlaki a "leader of external operations" for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which he called the terrorist group's "most active operational affiliate."

A second American, Samir Khan, editor of the English-language al-Qaida magazine Inspire, also died in the attack.

Mr. Awlaki's ability to advocate violent jihad in plain English as well as his use of the Internet and social media such as Facebook and YouTube to disseminate his sermons made him an exceptional recruiter for violent jihad, especially among young, English-speaking Muslims.

"There are a range of [radical Islamists] trying to preach on the Internet, but few people were able to generate the following that he did," said Seth Jones, an expert with the Rand Corp., a policy institute, who is writing a history of al-Qaida. He called Mr. Awlaki "extremely effective as a propagandist."

Others noted, however, that Mr. Awlaki wasn't among the top military commanders of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and that the group's top leader, Nasir al Wihayshi, a former aide to the late Osama bin Laden, as well as its military commander, Qasim al Raymi, and chief bomb-maker, Abdullah al Asiri, remain alive.

"In terms of the operations of AQAP, this will not have a debilitating affect; there are plenty of other AQAP figures that present a much greater threat," said Gregory Johnsen, a Princeton University Yemen analyst.

Word of Mr. Awlaki's death received little attention in Yemen, where he wasn't well-known. The country is enmeshed in a months-long political crisis over the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In Egypt, where bin Laden's death in May sparked marches on the U.S. Embassy by Muslim fundamentalists, there was no reaction to Mr. Awlaki's killing.

Some congressional Republicans congratulated Mr. Obama on the killing. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called Mr. Awlaki's death a "serious blow to radical Islam and long-overdue justice." Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the killing "is a tremendous tribute to President Obama and the men and women of our intelligence community."

Germany Returns 20 Skulls to Africa

By VICTOR HOMOLA, The New York Times

Namibian government representatives and leaders of the Herero and Nama tribes attended a ceremony at Charité Hospital in Berlin on Friday to take possession of 20 skulls brought to Germany for racial research a century ago. Although it is not clear how the 9 Hereros and 11 Namas died between 1904 and 1908, the four females and 16 males, including a boy of about three, were possibly victims of German colonial forces in their colony South West Africa. Imperial German troops and settlers massacred tens of thousands of tribe members when they revolted in 1904, after being expelled from their land, or recruited them into forced labor. In Berlin, scientists tried to prove the racial superiority of white Europeans over black Africans by analyzing features of the heads, Thomas Schnalke, the head of the Berlin Medical Historical Museum, told The Associated Press. According to Charité officials, there are still roughly 7,000 skulls from all over the world in their collection. "Today's handing over of the skulls into Namibian hands recalls a dark chapter in German Namibian history," Cornelia Pieper, Minister of State at the German Foreign Ministry, said in a statement. "With deep respect I commemorate the people who died more than one hundred years ago in the fight for their self-determination."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.




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