Last week, noted journalist Michael Hastings was killed in a tragic and dramatic car crash
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013
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Monday, June 24, 2013
Hatreds between Sunnis, Shiites abound in Mideast
CAIRO (AP) ? It's not hard to find stereotypes, caricatures and outright bigotry when talk in the Middle East turns to the tensions between Islam's two main sects.
Shiites are described as devious, power-hungry corruptors of Islam. Sunnis are called extremist, intolerant oppressors.
Hatreds between the two are now more virulent than ever in the Arab world because of Syria's civil war. On Sunday, officials said four Shiites in a village west of Cairo were beaten to death by Sunnis in a sectarian clash unusual for Egypt.
Hard-line clerics and politicians on both sides in the region have added fuel, depicting the fight as essentially a war of survival for their sect.
But among the public, views are complex. Some sincerely see the other side as wrong ? whether on matters of faith or politics. Others see the divisions as purely political, created for cynical aims. Even some who view the other sect negatively fear sectarian flames are burning dangerously out of control. There are those who wish for a return to the days, only a decade or two ago, when the differences did not seem so important and the sects got along better, even intermarried.
And some are simply frustrated that there is so much turmoil over a dispute that dates back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century.
"Fourteen centuries after the death of the prophet, in a region full of destruction, killing, occupation, ignorance and disease, you are telling me about Sunnis and Shiites?" scoffs Ismail al-Hamami, a 67-year-old Sunni Palestinian refugee in Gaza. "We are all Muslims. ... You can't ignore the fact that (Shiites) are Muslims."
Associated Press correspondents spoke to Shiites and Sunnis across the region. Amid the variety of viewpoints, they found a public struggling with anger that is increasingly curdling into hatred.
___
BACKGROUND
The Sunni-Shiite split is rooted in the question of who should succeed Muhammad in leading Muslims after his death in 632. Shiites say the prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali was his rightful successor but was cheated when authority went to those the Sunnis call the four "Rightfully Guided Caliphs" ? Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman and, finally, Ali.
Sunnis are the majority across the Islamic world. In the Middle East, Shiites have strong majorities in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain, with significant communities in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other parts of the Gulf.
Both consider the Quran the word of God. But there are distinctions in theology and religious practice between the two sects.
Some are minor: Shiites pray with their hands by their sides, Sunnis with their hands crossed at their chest or stomach.
Others are significant. Shiites, for example, believe Ali and a string of his descendants, the Imams, had not only rightful political authority after Muhammad but also held a special religious wisdom. Most Shiites believe there were 12 Imams ? many of them "martyred" by Sunnis ? and the 12th vanished, to one day return and restore justice. Sunnis accuse the Shiites of elevating Ali to the level of Muhammad himself ? incorrectly, since Shiites agree that Muhammad was the last of the prophets, a central tenet of Islam.
The bitter disputes of early Islam still resonate. Even secular-minded Shiite parents would never name their child after the resented Abu Bakr, Omar or Othman ? or Aisha, a wife of Muhammad, who helped raise a revolt against Ali during his Caliphate. When outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Egypt earlier this year, the sheik of Al-Azhar, the bastion of Sunni theology, told him sharply that if the sects are to get along, Shiites must stop "insulting" the "companions of the prophet."
But only the most hard-core would say those differences are reason enough to hate each other. For that, politics is needed.
___
IRAQ
If Syria's war has raised the region's sectarian hatreds, the war in Iraq played a big role in unleashing them. After the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the long-oppressed Shiite majority there saw a chance to take power. Sunnis feared the repression would flip onto them. The result was vicious sectarian fighting that lasted until 2008: Sunni extremists pulled Shiite pilgrims from buses and gunned them down; Shiite militiamen kidnapped Sunnis, dumping their tortured bodies later.
ABDUL-SATTAR ABDUL-JABAR, 56, is a Sunni cleric who occasionally preaches at the prominent Abu Hanifa mosque in the Sunni-dominated Azamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad. Two of his sons were killed by Shiite militiamen. He blames the United States and Iran for Iraq's strife.
"Right from the beginning, the Americans were trying to create sectarian rifts," he said. "Iran is a country of regional ambitions. It isn't a Shiite country. It's a country with specific schemes and agendas."
Now he fears the strife is returning, and he blames the Shiite-dominated government.
"We feel the government does not consider us part of the Iraqi nation," he said. "There is no magical solution for this. If the Shiites are convinced to change their politicians, that would be a big help."
AHMED SALEH AHMED, 40, a Sunni, runs a construction company in Baghdad mainly employing Shiites. He is married to a Shiite woman. They live in the Azamiyah neighborhood and raise their two daughters and son as Sunnis.
Still, his wife prays with the small clay stone that Shiites ? but not Sunnis ? set in front of their prayer rugs. She often visits a Shiite shrine in another Baghdad district. Ahmed sometimes helps his wife's family prepare food for Shiite pilgrims during religious ceremonies. But he admits that there sometimes is tension between the families.
"We were able to contain it and solve it in a civilized way," Ahmed said.
Iraqis like to talk politics, he said, and "when things get heated, we tend to change the subject."
When their children ask about sectarian differences, "we do our best to make these ideas as clear as we can for them so they don't get confused," he said. "We try to avoid discussing sectarian issues in front of the children."
Ahmed believes sectarian tensions have been strained because people have abused the democratic ideas emerging from the Arab Spring.
Democracy "needs open-mindedness, forgiveness and an ability to understand the other," he said. "No human being is born believing in democracy. It's like going to school ? you have to study first. Democracy should be for people who want to do good things, not for those who are out for revenge."
HUSSEIN AL-RUBAIE, 46, a Shiite, was jailed for two years under Saddam. His Shiite-majority Sadriya district in Baghdad saw considerable bloodshed during the worst of the strife, and he fears it's returning.
"The whole region is in flames and we are all about to be burnt," he said. "We have a lot of people who are ignorant and easily driven by sectarian feelings."
He sees it among his friends, who include Sunnis. "My friends only whisper about sectarian things because they think it is a shame to talk about such matters," al-Rubaie said, "but I am afraid that the day might come when this soft talking would turn to fighting in the street."
___
LEBANON
Among some of Lebanon's Shiites, it's fashionable to wear a necklace with a medallion in the shape of the fabled double-bladed sword of Ali. It's a mark of community pride at a time when the Shiite group Hezbollah says the sect is endangered by Sunni extremists in the Syrian uprising.
During Lebanon's 1974-2000 civil war, the main fight was between Christians and Muslims. But in the past decade, the most dangerous divide has been between Shiites and Sunnis.
For much of Lebanon's existence, Shiites, who make up about a third of the population, were an impoverished underclass beneath the Christians and Sunnis, each roughly a third also. The Shiite resentment helped the rise of the guerrilla force Hezbollah, on whose might the community won greater power. Now, many Sunnis resent Hezbollah's political domination of the government. The 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni, increased Sunni anger after Hezbollah members were blamed. Since then, both sides have clashed in the streets.
Syria's civil war has fueled those tensions. Lebanon's Sunnis largely back the mainly Sunni rebellion, while Shiites support President Bashar Assad's regime, which is dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism. Hezbollah sent fighters to help Assad fight the rebels, enraging Sunnis region-wide.
RANIA, 51, is a Shiite Lebanese banking executive, married to a Sunni and living in Ras Beirut, one of the capital's few mixed neighborhoods.
When she married, at age 22, "I didn't even know what the difference between Sunnis and Shiites is."
Now she's inclined to support Hezbollah. While not a fan of the hard-line group, she believes that Hezbollah and Syria are targeted because of their stances against Israel. She said her husband is anti-Hezbollah and supports Syria's rebels.
Rania, who gave only her first name because she doesn't want to be stigmatized about her social, religious or marital status, said she doesn't talk politics with her husband to avoid arguments.
"I support one (political) side and he supports the other, but we've found a way to live with it," added Rania, who has a 22-year-old daughter.
She said education plays a big role. "I find that the people who make comments about it are the people who are just ignorant, and ignorance feeds hatred and stereotyping," she added.
KHALED CHALLAH is a 28-year-old Syrian Sunni businessman who has lived for years in Lebanon. He comes from a conservative, religious family but only occasionally goes to mosque. He said the only way he would be able to tell the difference between a Sunni mosque and a Shiite one would be if the cleric talked about Syria in the sermon.
"A Shiite imam would speak against the rebels, and call to resist them, and a Sunni sheik would talk against the government in Syria," he said.
He said he still doesn't understand the Shiites' emotional fervor over the battle of Karbala, in which Ali's son, Hussein, was killed by the armies of the Sunni Ummayad dynasty in the 7th century. Hussein's martyrdom is a defining trauma of their faith, deepening their feeling of oppression. Every year, Shiites around the world mark the battle with processions that turn into festivals of mourning, with men lashing or cutting themselves.
"It means much more to Shiites, this battle's memory, than to Sunnis," Challah said.
He said Sunnis "behave sometimes like they are the only Muslims."
Challah called this "very silly. Sunnis and Shiites come from the same root, they worship the same God."
___
IRAN
The Shiite powerhouse of the Middle East is home to a government led by Shiite clerics with oil wealth and a powerful Revolutionary Guard. Tehran has extended its influence in the Arab world, mainly through its alliance with Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. Iran has presented that alliance not as sectarian but as the center of "resistance" against Israel.
Sunni Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies have been trying to stem Iran's influence, in part by warning of the spread of Shiism. Saudi Arabia's hard-line Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam views Shiism as heresy.
REZA TAJABADI, a Shiite cleric in Tehran, blames the Wahhabis ? and the related ultra-conservative Salafi movement in Sunni Islam ? for stoking sectarian hatred.
"If Wahabis withdrew from creating differences, then Shiites and Sunnis will be able to put aside their minor differences, which are not considerable."
ABOLFATAH DAVATI, another Shiite cleric, points to the historical difference between the two sects. Since Sunnis have been dominant through history, Sunni clerics became subordinate to the rulers. The Shiite clergy, he said, has been independent of power.
"Sunni clerics backed rulers and justified their policies, like the killing of Imam Hussein. Even now, they put their rulers' decision at the top of their agenda," he said.
"In contrast, Shiites have not depended on government, so Sunnis cannot tolerate this and issue religious edicts against them. This increases rifts."
___
EGYPT
In a country where the Muslim population is overwhelmingly Sunni, many Egyptians know little about Shiites. The Shiite population is tiny and largely hidden ? so secretive that its numbers are not really known. But ultraconservative Salafis, many of whom view Shiites as infidels, have become more politically powerful and more vocal since the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. They often preach against Shiism, warning it will spread to Egypt.
MONA MOHAMMED FOUAD is a rarity in Egypt: Her mother is an Iranian Shiite, her father an Egyptian Sunni. She considers herself Sunni.
"People are always surprised and shocked" when they find out her mother is Shiite, said Fouad, 23, who works for a digital marketing company. "But usually as soon as they know, they are very interested and they ask me many questions."
Fouad said her sister has heard work colleagues criticizing Shiites. In her fiance's office they distributed leaflets "telling people to beware of Shiite indoctrination," she added.
"People should read about Shiism. We make fun of foreigners who believe all Muslims are terrorists and we say they are ignorant, but we do the same thing to ourselves," Fouad said. "There is a difference in interpretation, a difference in opinion, but at the end of the day, we believe in the same things."
She told her Sunni fiance from the start that her mother is Shiite. "I told him to tell his family, so if they have any problem with that, we end it immediately."
ANAS AQEEL, a 23-year-old Salafi, spent the first 18 years of his life in Saudi Arabia, where he would sometimes encounter Shiites. "We didn't ever argue over faith. But they alienated me," he said.
"I once saw a Shiite in Saudi Arabia speaking ill of one of the companions of the prophet near his tomb. That one I had to clash with and expel him from the place," Aqeel said.
He worries about Shiites spreading their faith. While he said not all Shiites are alike, he added that "some of them deviate in the Quran and speak badly of the prophet's companions. If someone is wrong and ... he insists on his wrong concept, then we cannot call him a Muslim."
___
PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
Palestinian Muslims are also almost all Sunnis. Their main connection to the Shiite world has Hamas' alliance with Iran. But those ties were strained when Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, broke its connections with Syria because of the civil war.
AHMED MESLEH, a 28-year-old blogger from the West Bank town of Ramallah, says he met Shiites on a trip to Lebanon and encounters them via Facebook. But some have de-friended him because of his online comments.
"If we take Shiites from a religious point of view, then we can describe Shiites as a sect that has gone astray from the true doctrine of Islam. I consider them a bigger threat to Muslims and Islam than Jews and Israel," Mesleh said.
He cited the Shiites' processions mourning Hussein's death, saying: "The way they whip themselves, it's irrational."
The Middle East conflict "is in its core a religious conflict. The Shiites want to destroy Islam. In Lebanon, they are the ones controlling the situation, and the ones who are causing the sectarian conflict."
ISMAIL AL-HAMAMI, a 67-year-old Palestinian refugee in Gaza's Shati camp, said politics not religion is driving sectarian tensions.
"In Gaza, Iran used to support the resistance with weapons. Now they support Assad. ... In Iraq, they (Shiites) executed Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, and they took over the country with the help of the Americans. Now they are working against America in Iran and Syria."
"So is that related to religion? It's all about politics."
The beneficiaries of sectarianism, he said, are "those who want to sell arms to both sides ... those who want to keep Arab and Muslim countries living in the dark. The beneficiaries are the occupation (Israel) and the people who sell us religious slogans."
"God knows who is right or wrong."
___
AP correspondents Adam Schreck and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Barbara Surk and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Dalia Nammari in Ramallah and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Tony G. Gabriel and Mariam Rizk in Cairo and Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hatreds-between-sunnis-shiites-abound-mideast-220325815.html
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
Judge blocks audio expert testimony in Trayvon Martin case
By Barbara Liston
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Two voice identification experts who suggested that unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin screamed for help before he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman will not be allowed to testify at his murder trial, the judge in the case has ruled.
The ruling by Judge Debra Nelson was released on Saturday, marking the last major hurdle before opening statements in the high-profile case begin on Monday in Seminole County courthouse in Sanford, Florida.
Prosecutors had sought to call audio experts to testify about a 911 emergency call in which screams for help can be heard in the background during an altercation between Zimmerman and Martin before the shooting.
The screams could be pivotal evidence and help identify who was the aggressor on the night of the February 2012 killing. Zimmerman's family and supporters claim the voice was his, while Martin's parents insist the voice belonged to their son.
Last year, an FBI expert said a voice analysis of the call was inconclusive.
David Weinstein, a Miami lawyer and former prosecutor, called the ruling a victory for Zimmerman's defense team.
"Now there won't be a witness who can 'identify' the voice with certainty as a particular person," he said. "Each side can argue who they believe the voice belongs to and the jurors will have to decide who they hear."
Prosecutors say Zimmerman followed and confronted Martin despite a police dispatcher telling him not to pursue the 17-year-old. Zimmerman, 29, has said the two fought and that he shot Martin because he feared for his life.
An all-female jury will decide whether Zimmerman is guilty of second-degree murder, a charge that carries a potential life sentence. Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty.
Nelson said in her 12-page order that the decision does not prevent either side from playing the 911 tape and presenting witnesses familiar with Zimmerman's and Martin's voices from stating their opinions.
Lead defense attorney Mark O'Mara has called the recording "the most significant piece of evidence in the case."
Two state experts, in what they qualify as tentative or probable findings because of the poor quality of the recording, have said that the chilling screams heard in the background came from Martin.
Lawyers for Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, sought to block the testimony on grounds that the methods used by the state's voice recognition experts were based on questionable science.
Audio experts who testified for the defense in a lengthy pre-trial hearing argued that voice recognition techniques cannot identify an individual from screams made under extreme duress.
On Friday, the judge also dismissed a defense motion to bar certain words and phrases from the prosecution's opening statement.
She ruled prosecutors could allege that Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, "profiled" Martin but ordered them not to use the term "racial profiling."
(Additional reporting by David Adams; Writing by Kevin Gray; Editing by Eric Beech and Eric Walsh)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-blocks-audio-expert-testimony-trayvon-martin-case-153333340.html
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Snowden believed to be in Moscow
MOSCOW (AP) ? A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs was believed to have landed in Russia on Sunday ? possibly as a stopover before traveling elsewhere ? after being allowed to leave Hong Kong.
Edward Snowden was on an Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong that arrived in Moscow shortly after 5 p.m. (1300gmt) Sunday and was booked on a flight to fly to Cuba on Monday, the Russian news agencies ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported, citing unnamed airline officials. The reports said he intended to travel from Cuba to Caracas, Venezuela. There was also speculation that he might try to reach Ecuador.
The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group said it was working with him and that he was bound for an unnamed "democratic nation via a safe route for the purpose of asylum."
Snowden did not leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport with the other passengers and was not seen by a crowd of journalists waiting in the arrivals lounge. Interfax reported that he was spending the night in the transit zone of the airport because he did not have a visa to enter Russia and had rented a room in a capsule hotel.
The car of Ecuador's ambassador to Russia was parked outside the airport, spurring the speculation that Snowden intended to seek asylum in the Latin American country. But in Ecuador, a high-ranking source at the presidency said there was no information about whether Snowden would seek asylum there. The source spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak on the issue.
Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said last week that if Snowden asked for asylum, Ecuador would study the request.
Snowden had been in hiding in Hong Kong for several weeks after he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs. WikiLeaks said it was providing legal help to Snowden at his request and that he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from the group.
WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that his organization is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.
The White House said President Barack Obama has been briefed on Sunday's developments by his national security advisers.
Snowden's departure came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in the U.S.
The Department of Justice said only that it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."
It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed.
Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden go on a technicality appears to be a pragmatic move aimed at avoiding a drawn out extradition battle. The action swiftly eliminates a geopolitical headache that could have left Hong Kong facing pressure from both Washington and Beijing.
Hong Kong, a former British colony, has a high degree of autonomy and is granted rights and freedoms not seen on mainland China, but under the city's mini constitution Beijing is allowed to intervene in matters involving defense and diplomatic affairs.
Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., but the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political.
Russian officials have given no indication that they have any interest in detaining Snowden or any grounds to do so. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia would be willing to consider granting asylum if Snowden were to make such a request.
Russia and the United States have no extradition treaty that would oblige Russia to hand over a U.S. citizen at Washington's request.
The Cuban government had no comment on Snowden's movements or reports he might use Havana as a transit point.
The Obama administration on Saturday warned Hong Kong against delaying Snowden's extradition, with White House national security adviser Tom Donilon saying in an interview with CBS News, "Hong Kong has been a historically good partner of the United States in law enforcement matters, and we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case."
Michael Ratner, Assange's lawyer, said he didn't know Snowden's final destination, but that his options were not numerous. "You have to have a country that's going to stand up to the United States," Ratner said. "You're not talking about a huge range of countries here."
Ratner added that a country's extradition treaty with the U.S. is "not going to be relevant" because the country he ends up going to will likely be one willing to give him a political exemption.
Snowden's departure came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from the former NSA contractor that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.
He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview.
With a population of more than 1.3 billion, China has massive cellphone companies. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile network carrier with 735 million subscribers, followed by China Unicom with 258 million users and China Telecom with 172 million users.
Snowden said Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese University in Hong Kong, home of some of the country's major Internet traffic hubs, were targets of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year. He said the NSA was focusing on so-called "network backbones" in China, through which enormous amounts of Internet data passes.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the reports of Snowden's departure from Hong Kong to Moscow but did not know the specifics. It said the Chinese central government "always respects" Hong Kong's "handling of affairs in accordance with law." The Foreign Ministry also noted that it is "gravely concerned about the recently disclosed cyberattacks by relevant U.S. government agencies against China."
China's state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.
A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."
"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."
____
Chan reported from Hong Kong. Sylvia Hui in London, Paul Haven in Havana, Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, and Anne Flaherty and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wanted-us-leaker-snowden-believed-moscow-161850018.html
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Militants kill 9 foreign tourists, 1 Pakistani
ISLAMABAD (AP) ? Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn Sunday as they were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said.
The foreigners who were killed included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian, said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, he said.
The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a recent U.S. drone strike.
The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years and is likely to damage the country's already struggling tourism industry. Pakistan's mountainous north ? considered until now relatively safe ? is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.
The attack took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). Nanga Parbat is notoriously difficult to climb and is known as the "killer mountain" because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past. It's unclear if the tourists were planning to climb the mountain or were just visiting the base camp, which is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.
The gunmen were wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police force that patrols the area, said the interior minister. The attackers abducted two local guides to find their way to the remote base camp. One of the guides was killed in the shooting, and the other has been detained and is being questioned, said Khan.
"The purpose of this attack was to give a message to the world that Pakistan is unsafe for travel," said the interior minister in a speech in the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the incident. "The government will take all measures to ensure the safety of foreign tourists."
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa group carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban's deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.
"By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The attackers beat up the Pakistanis who were accompanying the tourists, took their money and tied them up, said a senior local government official. They checked the identities of the Pakistanis and shot to death one of them, possibly because he was a minority Shiite Muslim, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Although Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively peaceful area, it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on Shiites in recent years.
The attackers took the money and passports from the foreigners and then gunned them down, said the official. It's unclear how the Chinese tourist who was rescued managed to avoid being killed.
Local police chief Barkat Ali said they first learned of the attack when one of the local guides called the police station around 1 a.m. on Sunday.
The Pakistani government condemned the "brutal act of terrorism" in a statement sent to reporters.
"Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries," said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.
Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is sensitive to any issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.
Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the perceived danger of visiting a country that is home to a large number of Islamic militant groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which mostly reside in the northwest near the Afghan border. A relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the peaks of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second highest mountain in the world.
Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, condemned the attack and expressed fear that it would seriously damage the region's tourism industry.
"A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people," said Shah. "This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan."
The area has been cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers, and a military helicopter was searching the area, said Shah. The military airlifted the bodies to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, Sunday afternoon.
"God willing we will find the perpetrators of this tragic incident," said Shah.
The government suspended the chief secretary and top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.
___
Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/militants-kill-9-foreign-tourists-1-pakistani-083351537.html
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Driver says Hastings? car was speeding before crash
Journalist Michael Hastings in Vermont (Penguin/Rolling Stone)
A driver who witnessed the fiery crash that killed journalist Michael Hastings says the vehicle the 33-year-old was driving shook his car "like a freight truck" as it flew by early Tuesday morning in Los Angeles.
"Was stopped at a red light tonight when a pearl white Mercedes flew past," Michael Carter wrote on Facebook a few hours later. "It shook my car like a freight truck going by. Saw it burst into flames a quarter mile down the road when it hit a tree."
In a Facebook message to Yahoo News, Carter explained in detail what he saw:
I was stopped at the light at Santa Monica [Boulevard], headed south on Highland [Avenue]. I looked down to turn my radio down, and this car just blasted past me through the red light?it shook my car. No telling how fast the driver was going. A taxi driver was in the far right lane and we looked at each other, both saying, "What the hell was that?"... By the time the light changed, I could only see the tail lights of the white Mercedes?it was probably past Willoughby by then which was the next red light that I got stopped at. The Mercedes was flying down Highland. The same cab driver pulled up to the light at Willoughby [Avenue] and I looked over at him again in disbelief. Right as I did, the cab driver said something to the effect of, "He didn't make it." The [Mercedes] was all the way south of Melrose [Avenue] at this point.
I looked down Highland and saw a giant fireball at the base of one of the palms that line the medians on Highland. It was surreal. Even from as far away as I was, I could see how violent an impact it had been. I live in the area so parked near my place and sprinted over the the scene of the accident. As I was running, a couple of workers from the service station at the corner of Melrose and Highland were also running over. In broken English, one of them and I traded stories of what we saw as we ran. From what I could understand, he saw the car come off the ground at some point?maybe when [it] crossed Melrose.
A Hancock Park resident was already spraying the car with his water hose when we got to it, but wasn't making any progress. The car was engulfed. I couldn't see inside it. Fire trucks and police cars were at the scene almost immediately, it seemed.
I stayed and watched firefighters extinguish the the blaze. Bummed a cigarette from a guy named Jeremy and traded stories about what we saw. He was right around Melrose and Highland when it happened. I gave a statement to police and walked home.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the driver was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 4:25 a.m. Initially, neither the department nor the Los Angeles County coroner's office could positively identify the victim because the body was too badly burned. On Wednesday, the coroner confirmed the body taken from the vehicle was Hastings but said it would likely take several weeks to determine a cause of death.
Raw video taken from the scene?posted on LAWeekly.com?shows Hastings' vehicle engulfed in flames. The crash remains under investigation, the LAPD said on Thursday, but police officials told the Los Angeles Times they do not suspect foul play.
Hastings, a Vermont native whose 2010 Rolling Stone profile of U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal ("The Runaway General") led to McChrystal's resignation, was hired by BuzzFeed last spring to cover President Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign and had been working for the site's 6-month-old Los Angeles bureau.
News of Hastings' death was met with a variety of conspiracy theories.
According to the Times, he had been working on a story about Jill Kelley, a Florida socialite who recently filed a privacy lawsuit against the Department of Defense and the FBI.
On Wednesday, WikiLeaks claimed Hastings had contacted a lawyer for the anti-secrecy organization shortly before the crash.
"Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him," WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter:
But on Thursday, the FBI said it was conducting no such investigation. "At no time was journalist Michael Hastings ever under investigation by the FBI," the bureau said in a statement to the Burlington Free Press.
Hastings is survived by his wife, Elise Jordan, a journalist and former speechwriter for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians," BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said in a statement announcing Hastings' death. "He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold."
"Great reporters exude a certain kind of electricity," Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana said in a statement of his own. "The sense that there are stories burning inside them, and that there's no higher calling or greater way to live life than to be always relentlessly trying to find and tell those stories. I'm sad that I'll never get to publish all the great stories that he was going to write."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hastings-crash-witness-113514329.html
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Saturday, June 22, 2013
Guardian: Documents expose massive UK spying op
LONDON (AP) ? British spies are running an online eavesdropping operation so vast that internal documents say it even outstrips the United States' international Internet surveillance effort, the Guardian newspaper reported Friday.
The paper cited British intelligence memos leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to claim that U.K. spies were tapping into the world's network of fiber optic cables to deliver the "biggest internet access" of any member of the Five Eyes ? the name given to the espionage alliance composed of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
That access could in theory expose a huge chunk of the world's everyday communications ? including the content of people's emails, calls, and more ? to scrutiny from British spies and their American allies. How much data the Brits are copying off the fiber optic network isn't clear, but it's likely to be enormous. The Guardian said the information flowing across more than 200 cables was being monitored by more than 500 analysts from the NSA and its U.K. counterpart, GCHQ.
"This is a massive amount of data!" the Guardian quoted a leaked slide as boasting. The paper said other leaked slides, including one labeled "Collect-it-all," gave hints as to the program's ambition.
"Why can't we collect all the signals all the time?" NSA chief Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander was quoted as saying in another slide. "Sounds like a good summer project for Menwith" ? a reference to GCHQ's Menwith Hill eavesdropping site in northern England.
The NSA declined to comment on Friday's report. GCHQ also declined to comment on the report, although in an emailed statement it repeated past assurances about the legality of its actions.
"Our work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary, and proportionate," the statement said.
The Guardian, whose revelations about America and Britain's globe-spanning surveillance programs have reignited an international debate over the ethics of espionage, said GCHQ was using probes to capture and copy data as it crisscrossed the Atlantic between Western Europe and North America.
It said that, by last year, GCHQ was in some way handling 600 million telecommunications every day ? although it did not go into any further detail and it was not clear whether that meant that GCHQ could systematically record or even track all the electronic movement at once.
Fiber optic cables ? thin strands of glass bundled together and strung out underground or across the oceans ? play a critical role in keeping the world connected. A 2010 estimate suggested that such cables are responsible for 95 percent of the world's international voice and data traffic, and the Guardian said Britain's geographic position on Europe's western fringe gave it natural access to many of the trans-Atlantic cables as they emerged from the sea.
The Guardian said GCHQ's probes did more than just monitor the data live; British eavesdroppers can store content for three days and metadata ? information about who was talking to whom, for how long, from where, and through what medium ? for 30 days.
The paper quoted Snowden, the leaker, as saying that the surveillance was "not just a US problem. The U.K. has a huge dog in this fight ... They (GCHQ) are worse than the U.S."
Snowden, whose whereabouts are unknown, faces the prospect of prosecution in the United States over his disclosures, and some there have called on him to be tried for treason. Snowden has expressed interest in seeking asylum in Iceland, where a local businessman said he was prepared to fly the leaker should he request it.
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Snowden have so far been unsuccessful.
___
Kimberly Dozier in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/guardian-documents-expose-massive-uk-spying-op-184321219.html
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Inside WWE's massive video vault
WWE owns, quite simply, the largest library of professional wrestling content in the world.
Since buying out WCW in 2001, the titan of sports-entertainment has acquired the tape libraries of major promotions, including ECW, AWA, World Class Championship Wrestling, Championship Wrestling from Florida, Smoky Mountain Wrestling and many others. But who is responsible for curating this priceless collection? How is it organized and stored?
Check out photos of The Fink and WWEClassics.com taking a trip deep inside the library
Bryan Staffaroni is WWE?s Director of Media Technology. In this role, he is responsible for the massive undertaking of digitally archiving each and every match that WWE owns.
?Whether it was a WCW Nitro episode or some MSG show from back in the day ? if it aired, we ingested it in that project,? Staffaroni explained.
As WWE?s Director of Asset Management, George Germanakos oversees the content of what is currently owned, while also keeping an eye on what independent libraries WWE might be interested in acquiring in the future.
?When someone in the company is looking for a certain piece of footage, they?ll come to me,? Germanakos said. ?Whether it is years, dates, venues, names, whatever they need. Call my department up and we?ll get that information and that footage.?
Together, these two men allow the WWE Universe to consume rare wrestling footage and also provide the information needed for historical video packages seen on WWE programming today. On a rainy June day, WWEClassics.com and WWE Hall of Famer Howard Finkel were given a tour of WWE?s top-secret tape library and storage facility. Join us to discover what we found inside.
View CommentsSource: http://www.wwe.com/classics/inside-video-vault
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Frustrated veterans plead for help with ?the wait we carry?
President Barack Obama greets Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran Eilene Henderson in Section 60 of Arlington National??"Imagine this is you." The words have barely appeared on the screen, over footage of what seems to be an American military convoy, when there's an explosion. "Your life is changed forever" the text reads, over images of two soldiers carrying a wounded comrade, followed by a picture of two artificial legs and a cane. "How long should you have to wait before the country you served provides the help it promised?"
They fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, and now they're facing a different kind of enemy at home: Frequently shocking delays in getting their government to process their disabilities claims. One frustrated veterans group -- Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America -- has put together a new interactive tool to show the American public that "behind every piece of data is a person."
The piece of data is this: The 1,768 veterans profiled on "The Wait We Carry" have waited an average of 546 days to get their benefits. The tool lets you narrow down the list by home state, conflict, and other details. They can share their names, though many do not. The tool allows you to reach out to an individual veteran. And it lets veterans, in turn, share their stories. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Scarring. Burns. Shrapnel. Bad backs. Bad knees.
They aren't all horror stories -- some veterans waited a relatively brief stretch.
But some are grim.
IAVA spotlighted Jonathan Goodman, who served in the Marines and did two tours in Iraq, earning a Purple Heart for wounds suffered in a suicide bomb blast in 2004. Come July 1, 2013, the Tulsa, OK, resident will have waited a full year after filing a claim for traumatic brain injury, chronic migraines and other ailments.
The local VA hospital provides him with medical treatment, but the delay has left him taking extra work shifts while his wife puts in longer hours, IAVA said.
?It's sad to see so many veterans come back and apply for this disability benefits and then wait so long to get a response. It can send a lot of veterans into a downward spiral," said Goodman. ?Veterans need to get the help they've earned. They shouldn't be put on the back burner."
On June 4, the White House said that President Barack Obama is "deadly serious" about wiping out the massive backlog in veterans' disability benefits claims by 2015.
The problem predates Obama's arrival in office. But solutions have been slow in coming. In early June, according to IAVA figures, 865,265 veterans had disability claims pending with Veterans Affairs as of May 25. And 575,825 had been waiting for at least 125 days. It's an issue that has attracted attention from various quarters?including a devastating report from "The Daily Show."
"The wait we carry" recalls the Veterans Administration motto, pulled from Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, in which he affirmed the nation's duty "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/frustrated-veterans-plead-help-wait-carry-105641059.html
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Friday, June 21, 2013
How I Motivated Myself to Face My Weight and Debt Problems
There was a time when I was overweight, but didn?t want to admit it to myself. I didn?t feel in control of my health, because I couldn?t quit smoking or eat healthier for longer than a few days, nor exercise regularly.
Thinking about my weight made me feel horrible, so I didn?t want to even think about it. Of course, not thinking about it meant I never did anything about it. Not facing my problems made it worse, which just made me feel worse. It was a downward spiral, and really hard to stop.
I had the same downward spiral when I was in debt (at the same time in my life, about eight years ago). I couldn?t pay all my bills, so I would stuff them in a drawer so I didn?t have to see them. I had creditors calling me but I didn?t answer their calls (I knew their numbers on the caller ID). I didn?t know how much debt I was in because I never wanted to open the envelopes, much less add it all up on paper. I?d borrow money to pay bills, then owe more. And I?d skip paying lots of bills, and accrue interest.
It wasn?t a smart way to manage my finances, but I couldn?t stand the thought of facing all of it. I felt bad even thinking about my finances, so I?d avoid them, and think about other things. Of course, this led to me seeking distraction in food and entertainment and shopping, which led to worse debt. Not facing my debt made it worse.
How did I overcome all of this? I?ll share it here, in hopes that it will help others facing the same problem?or not facing it. It?s also important to note that if you know someone in bad health (or bad financial shape), they are probably also in denial. They don?t want to even talk about it. How do you help them? I?ll share that below too.
How I Finally Faced Things
So how do you face a problem, so you can work on it, when you don?t want to face it? There has to be a point when you say, ?This isn?t good. I need to do something about it.?
In truth, there usually isn?t just one point?there are many. It?s a building problem, where you get many data points over time?you see yourself in a picture and don?t like how heavy you look, you get a comment from someone that?s less than flattering, your pants don?t fit anymore, you breathe heavy when you try to run for a couple of minutes. But then there has to be a point where you decide that enough is enough. You start to feel some resolve. You decide you can do something?it?s not insurmountable.
How exactly I got to that point, I can?t fully remember. But I do know that there were several things that helped me:
- Inspiration: Seeing other people with similar situations who overcame the problem? in blogs and magazines, mainly.
- Do-ability: I didn?t think I could lose all the weight or overcome my huge mountain of debt in a day or a week? but having a small step I could actually do was mentally empowering. If I could do something in a day or two, that was doable. It felt like I could take control again.
- Motivation: When I saw that my health problems were going to be an example for my kids, I knew I had to make a change. When I saw that my financial problems were hurting my family, I knew I had to make a change. In both cases, my motivation for change was bigger than myself?I was doing it to help people I cared about.
- Commitment: When I was inspired by others to make a change, I took an easy step that?s actually a very big step?I made a commitment. Making a commitment is actually very easy?you can tell a friend, a child, a spouse, or the world (via social media or email) that you?re going to make a change. Commit not just to ?losing weight? or ?getting out of debt? but to something specific: ?run 3x a week and cut out sweets? is better. So is ?make a list of all my debts, then make a payment to the first one." Those are first steps? you can always ?add more veggies? or ?make a meal plan? after you get started. But making a commitment is an easy (if a bit scary) first step that will lock you in to further steps.
I have to admit that it wasn?t as simple as making a decision to change, and then continually making progress with no discouragements. Not at all. I would try to make a change, slip up, feel bad, then start again. And again. And make adjustments each time, learning about myself in the process, and over time getting good at the skill of change. But the first step?facing the problem?was made possible by inspiration, do-ability, motivation and finally commitment.
How to Get Others to Face Their Problems
I firmly believe that you can?t force anyone to change. You can only inspire them to change, if you?re lucky. That?s not an easy task. If you have a friend or family member who is struggling with health issues, or financial problems, or something similar where they don?t want to face the problem ? it?s tough. They probably don?t want to hear it from you.
However, that?s not to say you should throw your hands up and forget about it. You can still help. Just don?t try to force it.
Here?s what I would suggest:
- Never attack?empathize. Never tell the person they?re doing something wrong, or imply they?re a bad or undisciplined or lazy person. Assume that they have the best of intentions, that they would change if they could, but they feel bad about it. Assume that you would feel the same if you were in their position?and try to remember a time when you felt that way. Don?t be patronizing, nor ?sympathize." That?s condescending.
- Inspire. Set an example, and share what?s working for you. Share stories of other people who have overcome problems.
- Suggest something do-able. And do it with them. If you want them to tackle health issues, suggest the two of you go walking after work every day. Just for 15 minutes (at first). It?s a nice way to socialize and bond, but also get active. This is a small step that can be built upon?later you can walk further, or faster, and maybe add some jogging intervals to the walking after a few weeks or months (health permitting). You can also later do some diet challenges. But the key is to make the steps do-able, easy, and social.
- Offer to be an accountability buddy. If the other person admits to not being motivated, suggest that they commit to you, and be accountable to you (email you every day or every week to share progress or lack thereof). Suggest that they set a fun consequence (something embarrassing) if they don?t live up to their commitment to you. Or do a challenge, where the two of you are doing something fun at the same time ?a pushup challenge, a thousand-steps challenge, an eat-more-vegetables challenge.
Despite your best efforts, this might not work. You can?t force change on someone. They have to want it themselves. And if they don?t, you can?t make them want it. In that case, you?ll have to back off, though showing concern and wanting to help is always something you can do. Change is possible. Facing problems is totally possible. You just might need a little inspiration to do it.
How I Finally Faced My Weight and Debt Problems | Zen Habits
Leo Babauta is the creator and writer of Zen Habits. He's married with six kids, lives in San Francisco (previously Guam), and is a runner and a vegan. Read more about him: My Story.
Image remixed from pond5.
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Cabbage circadian clocks tick even after picking
Daily cycles help vegetables fight off hungry caterpillars
By Cristy Gelling
Web edition: June 20, 2013
CABBAGE JET LAG
Vegetables stored under constant light conditions are more vulnerable to being eaten by the cabbage looper caterpillar.
Credit: Goodspeed et al.
Cabbages with jet lag are less nutritious and more vulnerable to insect pests.
Fruits and vegetables have an internal clock that can be reset by a daily cycle of light and dark, but storing produce in darkened refrigerators could disrupt this natural rhythm, researchers report June 20 in Current Biology.
Plants, even after being cropped from the stalk, are much more responsive to their external environment than we give them credit for, says Janet Braam, a plant biologist at Rice University. ?When we harvest them they?re still metabolizing,? she says. ?They?re still alive.?
Braam normally studies circadian rhythms in plants that are growing, but an offhand comment by her son inspired her to turn to the grocery store for new research subjects.
She and her colleagues had previously found that the plant Arabidopsis thaliana schedules production of insect-repelling chemical defenses to match caterpillar feeding peaks. These defenses include compounds called glucosinolates, which are thought to have anticancer and antimicrobial properties in addition to their caterpillar-discouraging ones.
When Braam told her son about these experiments, he joked that now he knew the best time to eat his vegetables. She realized that cabbages???which also produce glucosinolates???might have similar daily cycles even after being picked, packed and shipped.
?So we went to the grocery store, bought some cabbage and put them under dark/light cycles that were either in phase or out of phase with our insects, and then asked whether the insects could tell the difference,? says Braam.
Like Arabidopsis, the cabbage leaves had daily glucosinolate cycles if the vegetables were exposed to alternating 12-hour periods of light and dark. Caterpillars on a cycle offset by 12 hours to the cabbages? (so the cabbages? dawn was the caterpillars? dusk) ate about 20 times more than did caterpillars on a schedule synchronized to their food. Caterpillars also ate twice as much cabbage if the vegetable had been kept either in constant light or constant darkness.
It?s not just cabbages that adjust daily rhythm to better fend off caterpillars; the team found similar results for spinach, zucchini, sweet potatoes, carrots and blueberries. These fruits and vegetables don?t produce glucosinolates, so they must make some other kind of defenses on a daily cycle, says Braam.
The researchers suggest that we might improve the health benefits and pest resistance of fruits and vegetables by storing them under lighting conditions that mimic day and night. But Cathie Martin, a plant biologist at the John Innes Centre in England, is skeptical. She says most postharvest vegetable losses are from fungal infections, not the insects that eat vegetables in the field. And cabbages are sometimes cold-stored for months in the dark before being sold. Cabbages lose the clock-regulated pest resistance about a week after harvesting, the new study shows.
?But maybe I?ll be proven completely wrong,? says Martin. ?Maybe one day we?ll all have little LEDs in the fridge.?
Suggested Reading
R. Cheung. Blue light tells plants when to flower. Science News Online, May 25, 2012. [Go to]
T. Hesman Saey. Splices of time. Science News Online, October 20, 2010. [Go to]
J. Raloff. Herbal herbicides. Science News. Vol.171, March 17, 2007, p. 167. Available online: [Go to]
D. Goodspeed et al. Arabidopsis synchronizes jasmonate-mediated defense with insect circadian behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 109, March 20, 2012, p. 4674. doi:10.1073/pnas.1116368109 [Go to]
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Saturday, June 1, 2013
Activists: Troops attack convoy in key Syrian town
This image made from video posted by Ugarit News and taken on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows an explosion from shelling in Qusair, Syria. Syrian President Bashar Assad said the regime has received its first shipment of a sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missile system, and the main Western-backed opposition group announced Thursday that it will not participate in peace talks ? a double blow to international efforts to end the country's devastating civil war. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)
This image made from video posted by Ugarit News and taken on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, which is consistent with other AP reporting, shows an explosion from shelling in Qusair, Syria. Syrian President Bashar Assad said the regime has received its first shipment of a sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missile system, and the main Western-backed opposition group announced Thursday that it will not participate in peace talks ? a double blow to international efforts to end the country's devastating civil war. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)
FILE - In this Friday, Aug. 21, 2009 file photo, a Russian-made MiG-29 jet fighter flown by the aerobatic team Strizhi (Swifts) perform during MAKS (the International Aviation and Space Show) in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia. Russian arms manufacturer MiG told Russian news agencies Friday, May 31, 2013 that it is signing a contract to deliver at least 10 fighter jets to Syria. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)
BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian troops on Friday attacked a convoy trying to evacuate wounded people from a central town near the border with Lebanon, killing at least seven, as rebel reinforcements infiltrated the besieged area to fight government forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack in the town of Qusair also wounded "tens of people." Qusair-based activist Hadi Abdullah described the attack to The Associated Press via Skype, saying it killed nine people and wounded many others.
The battle for Qusair has exposed Hezbollah's growing role in the Syrian conflict that has killed more than 70,000 over the past two years. The Shiite militant group, which has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's troops, initially tried to play down its involvement, but abandoned the attempt after dozens of its fighters were killed in the Qusair area and buried in large funerals in Lebanon.
Last week, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah firmly linked his militant group's fate to the survival of the Assad regime, raising the stakes not just in Syria, but also in Hezbollah's tense relations with rival groups in Lebanon.
Over the past weeks, troops and Hezbollah fighters captured wide areas around Qusair and earlier this month launched an offensive on the town in an attempt to capture it. Dozens of troops, Hezbollah fighters and rebels have been killed since then.
Abdullah said he was with the convoy evacuating scores of wounded people when troops started firing shells and machine guns, wounding about 80 people. "Women and children jumped out of the cars and started running in fear," Abdullah said.
He said that there are around 800 wounded people in rebel-held areas in Qusair. Abdullah said the main makeshift hospital in the town was hit, and a home was turned into a clinic.
The regime and the opposition both value Qusair, which lies along a land corridor linking two Assad's strongholds, Damascus and the heartland of his minority Alawite sect, an area along the Mediterranean coast. For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon, just 10 kilometers (six miles) away.
The Observatory and Abdullah said that rebels from the northern province of Aleppo managed to enter rebel-held area of Qusair to help defend it against advancing troops.
"Individuals have come in the past, but this is the first time that groups of rebels have arrived here," Abdullah said. Several days ago rebel commanders issued a call on forces around the country to move on Qusair, underlying its importance.
In Moscow, a Russian arms manufacturer said it is signing a contract to deliver at least 10 fighter jets to Syria.
Sergei Korotkov, general director of the MiG company that makes the jets, told Russian news agencies that a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss terms and deadlines of a new contract supplying MiG-29 M/M2 fighters to Syria.
Korotkov did not say how many MiGs Syria were buying, but said it would be "more than 10." It was not clear when they would be delivered.
Syria's air force has been active in attacking rebel bases and strongholds around the country. Rebel forces have no answer for the government air power.
___
Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.
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