The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Prosecutors seek death for U.S. soldier charged in Afghan rampage
- Obama, Romney focus on swing states in late campaigning
- Suicide bomber kills 50 Syrian security men - opposition
| Prosecutors seek death for U.S. soldier charged in Afghan rampage Posted: 05 Nov 2012 07:00 PM PST TACOMA, Washington (Reuters) - Military prosecutors said on Monday they would seek the death penalty for a U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers when he ventured out of his camp on two revenge-fuelled drunken forays earlier this year.
The lead prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Jay Morse, told a preliminary hearing he would present evidence proving "chilling premeditation" on the part of Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The shootings of mostly women and children in Afghanistan's Kandahar province in March marked the worst case of civilian slaughter blamed on an individual U.S. soldier since the Vietnam War and eroded already strained U.S.-Afghan ties after more than a decade of conflict in the country. Bales faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder as well as charges of assault and wrongfully possessing and using steroids and alcohol while deployed. Morse said he was submitting a "capital referral" in the case, requesting that Bales be executed if convicted. The hearing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state was expected to last two weeks and include witness testimony from Afghanistan carried by live video, including testimony from villagers and Afghan soldiers. At the end, military commanders will decide whether there is sufficient evidence for Bales to stand trial by court-martial. Bales, dressed in camouflage Army fatigues with his head shaven, embraced his wife in court before the hearing began. He then sat silently watching the proceedings from the defence table as Morse summarized the prosecution's account of the events of March 10-11. According to Morse, Bales had been drinking with two fellow soldiers before he left his base, Camp Belambay, and went to a village where he committed the first killings. Morse said Bales then returned to the camp and told a drinking buddy, Sergeant Jason McLaughlin, "I just shot up some people," before leaving for a second village and killing more people. Morse called Bales' actions "deliberate, methodical." According to McLaughlin, Bales asked him to smell his rifle and said "I'll be back at 5 (a.m.). You got me?" McLaughlin said he did not think Bales was serious, and "didn't think too much about it," going back to sleep for guard duty that started at 3 a.m. DESCRIBED AS WEARING A CLOAK Prosecutors showed a video shot by night-vision camera from a surveillance balloon over the camp, showing a figure they identified as Bales walking back to the post wearing a dark blue bed sheet or throw rug tied around his neck like a cloak. He is seen being confronted by three soldiers, including the two men prosecutors said he had been drinking with, who ordered him to drop his weapons and took him into custody as he is heard saying, "Are you f***ing kidding me?" One of the three, Corporal David Godwin, testified that Bales kept repeating the words, "I thought I was doing the right thing," and "It's bad. It's bad. It's really bad." Several witnesses said Bales' trousers were spattered with blood. One said he had a "ghost-like look." Godwin recounted that he, Bales and McLaughlin had been drinking whiskey together in McLaughlin's room while watching the Hollywood film "Man on Fire," which stars Denzel Washington as a former assassin bent on revenge. Several witnesses from the camp said Bales had been aggrieved over the lack of action over an improvised explosive device attack on a patrol near the camp several days earlier, in which one U.S. soldier lost the lower part of a leg. Prosecutors said Bales had been armed with a rifle, a pistol and a grenade launcher on the night in question, and that the killings took place over a five-hour period in two villages. The dead included members of four families, most shot in the head. When Bales returned to the camp and surrendered his weapons, he was brought to Captain Daniel Fields, team leader, at the camp's command centre. "What the f*** just happened?" Fields said he asked Bales. He said Bales avoided eye contact and just said "I'm sorry, I let you down." Bales, who was not expected to testify during the so-called Article 32 hearing, had been confined at a military prison in Kansas from March until he was moved in October to Lewis-McChord, where his infantry regiment was based. John Henry Browne, Bales' civilian lawyer, has suggested Bales may not have acted alone and may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Bales' wife, Kari, told a local NBC affiliate, KING5-TV, before Monday's hearing she believed he was innocent, as a massacre of innocent civilians was "not something my husband would have done ... not the Bob that I know." The shootings highlighted discipline problems among U.S. soldiers from Lewis-McChord, which was also the home base of four enlisted men from the former 5th Stryker Brigade who were convicted or pleaded guilty to murder or manslaughter over three killings of unarmed Afghan civilians in 2010. (Additional reporting by Laura L. Myers; Writing by Steve Gorman, Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Todd Eastham) Copyright © 2012 Reuters | ||
| Obama, Romney focus on swing states in late campaigning Posted: 05 Nov 2012 05:21 PM PST COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney engaged in frantic get-out-the-vote efforts and made final pleas to voters in a sprint through battleground states that will determine who wins their agonizingly close White House race on Tuesday.
Both candidates sought to generate strong turnout from supporters and to sway independent voters to their side in the last hours of a race that polls showed was deadlocked nationally. Obama had a slight lead in the eight or nine battleground states that will decide the race on Tuesday. The latest Reuters/Ipsos national poll of likely voters, a daily tracking poll, gave Obama a slight edge, with 48 percent support compared to Romney's 46 percent. The difference was within the 3.4 percentage point credibility interval, which allows for statistical variation in Internet-based polls. Obama was up 4 percentage points in must-win Ohio, 50 percent to 46 percent, and held slimmer leads in Virginia and Colorado. Romney led in Florida by 1 percentage point, the poll found. The president, with a final-day itinerary that included stops in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, urged voters to stick with him and trust that his economic policies are working. He travelled with rocker Bruce Springsteen. "Ohio, I'm not ready to give up on the fight. I've got a whole lot of fight left in me and I hope you do too," Obama told supporters in Columbus, Ohio. Romney's final day included stops in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. He pledged that he would handle the economy better than Obama and jabbed his opponent for blaming Republican predecessor George W. Bush for the weak economy. "When I'm elected, the economy and the American job market will still be stagnant, but I'm not going to waste any time complaining about my predecessor," Romney said in Columbus. "I'm not just going to take office on January 20. I'm going to take responsibility for that office," he said. The candidates are seeking to piece together the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory in the state-by-state battle for the presidency. Despite the close national opinion polls, Obama has an easier path to victory: If he wins the three states he was visiting on Monday - Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa - then he would likely carry the day. OHIO COULD BE DECISIVE All eyes were on the Midwestern state of Ohio, whose 18 electoral votes could be decisive. Romney, looking for any edge possible, planned last-second visits on Tuesday to both Ohio and Pennsylvania, aides said. The visits to the areas around Cleveland and Pittsburgh would be aimed at driving turnout. And the Pittsburgh stop could be as much about Ohio as Pennsylvania, since many in eastern Ohio watch Pittsburgh television. Romney's path to the White House becomes much harder should he lose Ohio. The state has been leaning toward Obama - its unemployment rate is lower than the 7.9 percent national average and its heavy dependence on auto-related jobs meant the bailout to auto companies that Obama pursued in 2009 is popular. Both campaigns expressed confidence that their candidate would win, and there were enough polls to bolster either view. There were clear signs that Obama held an edge. A CNN/ORC poll, for instance, showed him up in Ohio by 50 percent to 47 percent. The close margins in state and national polls suggested the possibility of a cliff-hanger that could be decided by which side has the best turnout operation and gets its voters to the polls. Whoever wins will have a host of challenges to confront. The top priority will be the looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases that would begin with the new year. The balance of power in Congress also will be at stake on Tuesday, with Obama's Democrats now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority and Romney's Republicans favoured to retain control of the House of Representatives. In a race where the two candidates and their party allies raised a combined $2 billion, the most in U.S. history, both sides have pounded the heavily contested battleground states with an unprecedented barrage of ads. (Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Alistair Bell, Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)
Two cheers for Obama from Europe's press The keys to winning in swing state Ohio in U.S. presidential race Copyright © 2012 Reuters | ||
| Suicide bomber kills 50 Syrian security men - opposition Posted: 05 Nov 2012 04:10 PM PST BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Islamist suicide car bomber killed at least 50 Syrian security men in Hama province on Monday, an opposition group said, in what would be one of the bloodiest single attacks on President Bashar al-Assad's forces in the 20-month-old uprising.
Another day of relentless violence in Syria coincided with more unity talks in Qatar among opposition factions. Syrian state media reported that a "terrorist" suicide bomber had targeted a rural development centre in Sahl al-Ghab in Hama province, putting the death toll at two. Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the centre was used by security forces and pro-Assad militia as one of their biggest bases in the area. "A fighter from the Nusra Front drove his car to the centre and then blew himself up," he said. "A series of explosions followed. At least 50 were killed." The Nusra Front, an al Qaeda-inspired group of ultra-orthodox Salafi Muslims, has claimed responsibility for several suicide bombings in Damascus and elsewhere in the past. It operates mostly independently of other rebel factions, some of which have criticised it for indiscriminate tactics. Syrian officials often blame foreign-backed Islamist militants for the anti-Assad revolt, in which about 32,000 people have been killed since it began in March 2011. In Damascus, a car bomb exploded in the mostly Alawite western district of Mezzeh 86, killing 11 people and wounding dozens more, including children, state media and the Syrian Observatory reported. An Islamist group calling itself Seif al-Sham claimed responsibility for the attack, which it said targeted a meeting point for the army, police and pro-Assad militia. Warplanes, tanks and artillery battered rebel-held parts of southern Damascus in what one Western diplomat said was an escalation in the government campaign to crush the insurgency. Opposition activists said at least 10 people were killed there. OPPOSITION TALKS An air strike on Haram, a town in the northwestern province of Idlib near the Turkish border, killed at least 20 rebels of the Idlib Martyrs' Brigade, probably including their commander, Basil Eissa, the Syrian Observatory said. Much of Idlib province is in the hands of insurgents, but remains vulnerable to air power, used increasingly by Assad's forces to contain his mostly Sunni Muslim opponents. In Qatar, divided Syrian opposition groups were meeting to try to forge a cohesive leadership that would then make common cause with rebel factions fighting on the ground, in an effort to gain wider international recognition and arms supplies. The Syrian National Council (SNC), the largest overseas-based opposition group, was expected to expand its membership to 400 from 300 and to elect a new leader and executive committee before talks with other anti-Assad factions in Doha this week. Discussions focused on a proposal by influential opposition figure Riad Seif for a new structure combining the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other insurgent units with local civilian bodies and prominent individuals. The Syria conflict has also divided big powers, with Russia and China opposing Western calls for Assad's removal and critical of patchy outside efforts to arm his opponents. Rebels have few weapons to counter warplanes and artillery, but Western nations have been wary of supplying anti-tank or anti-aircraft missiles without a credible opposition leadership. That has given the Syrian military a free hand, with densely populated Damascus suburbs hit by air and ground bombardments that have killed hundreds of people in the last three weeks. Witnesses said artillery deployed on Qasioun, a mountain that overlooks Damascus, was pounding southern neighbourhoods and warplanes were firing rockets. Tanks were also in action. "WAR OF ATTRITION" Activist Rami al-Sayyed, speaking from southern Damascus, said rebels had made hit-and-run attacks on pro-Assad militiamen in the city overnight before retreating to nearby farmland. In one attack, rebels fought pro-Assad militiamen in Nisreen, a southern district mainly populated by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. They also hit positions of the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a Syrian-sponsored faction, in the nearby Yarmouk refugee camp, where 20 people were reported killed by army shelling on Sunday. At least seven PFLP-GC members were killed in the latest fighting. The Syrian conflict has aggravated divisions in the Islamic world, with Shi'ite Iran supporting Assad and U.S.-allied Sunni nations such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar backing his foes. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Egypt's al-Ahram daily that Moscow, Syria's main arms supplier, was sending weapons under Soviet-era commitments for defence against external threats, not to support Assad. "We do not side with any faction in Syria's internal battle," Lavrov was quoted as saying. Russia and China, both permanent Security Council members, have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad's government for its handling of an uprising that turned from peaceful protests into a civil war. (Additional reporting by Rania el Gamal and Regan Doherty in Qatar and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
At home away from home, Syrian Kurd refugees long for statehood Copyright © 2012 Reuters |
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