Thursday July 10th 2014
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UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) - Insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country's north, Iraq told the United Nations in a letter appealing for help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad."
Nearly 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the July 8 letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
"Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state," Alhakim wrote, adding that such materials "can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction."
"These nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorist groups, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts," said Alhakim.
He warned that they could also be smuggled out of Iraq.
A U.S. government source familiar with the matter said the materials were not believed to be enriched uranium and therefore would be difficult to use to manufacture into a weapon. Another U.S. official familiar with security matters said he was unaware of this development raising any alarm among U.S. authorities.
A Sunni Muslim group known as the Islamic State is spearheading a patchwork of insurgents who have taken over large swaths of Syria and Iraq. The al Qaeda offshoot until recently called itself the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
"The Republic of Iraq is notifying the international community of these dangerous developments and asking for help and the needed support to stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad," Alhakim wrote.
Iraq acceded to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material on Monday, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The convention requires states to protect nuclear facilities and material in peaceful domestic use, storage and transport.
More than 20 people have
been killed in the latest air raids on Gaza, Palestinian officials say,
as Israel continues its current offensive.
The Palestinian health ministry said most died in attacks on a
house and a cafe in Khan Younis in the south, bringing the overall
death toll to 80.
Militants in Gaza continued firing rockets into Israel on Thursday, with sirens sounding over southern towns.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned the situation was "on a knife-edge".
'Tap on roof'
The Israeli military said that it had attacked 108 targets
since midnight and that 12 rockets had been fired at Israel, seven of
them intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system.
Israel says its targets in Operation Protective Edge have been
militant fighters and facilities including rocket launchers, weapons
stores, tunnels and command centres.
The Palestinian health ministry said 17 people including five
children and three women were killed in the strikes on the house and
cafe in Khan Younis.
Israel has not commented on the incidents.
Elsewhere on Thursday, three people also died in an Israeli
strike on a car in western Gaza City, Palestinian reports say. Reuters
said the victims were militants from Islamic Jihad.
Israel thwarts Palestinian terrorist attack on major West Bank highway
Defense
Ministry security guards stopped a Palestinian car with two passengers
carrying a bomb they believe was meant for a terror attack inside
Israel, Judea and Samaria police said Thursday afternoon.
The
white four-door hatchback with Palestinian plates was stopped at the
Oranit checkpoint on highway 5 northeast of Tel Aviv after it "drew the
suspicion of security guards" according to police. Inside the car, the
Defense Ministry said their security guards found a gas canister hooked
up with electric wires which they say they believe was an explosive
device.
The driver and passenger were taken from the car and arrested, and a bomb sapper robot was sent to dismantle the device.
After the incident, traffic on highway 5 near the scene was stopped in both directions, causing major gridlock.
The Defense Ministry said the driver admitted to planning a bombing and that both suspects are now in custody of police.
ISIS is leaving a path of destroyed churches, shrines and mosques in
its wake as it storms across Syria and Iraq, and has even set its sights
on Mecca -- Islam's holiest site.
The nihilistic jihadis, led by self-proclaimed descendant of Prophet
Muhammad Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, have already bulldozed or blown up some
of the most sacred places in Iraq, and seem bent on killing and
destroying anyone or anything that does not measure up to their vision
of Islam. Experts say the group, which originally stood for Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria, but now simply calls itself "Islamic State,"
has appointed itself the leading proponent of the Muslim faith.
“They see themselves as the last defenders of Islamic civilization
and want to eradicate anything that they see as the enemy of Islam, and
any Muslim they perceive as compromising with the West,” Yvonne Haddad, a
professor at Georgetown University who specializes in the history of
Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, told FoxNews.com.
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, July 10 (Reuters) - The Pakistani military has
seized control of 80 percent of Miranshah, the capital of the remote
tribal region of North Waziristan, where the military launched an
operation against Islamist militants last month, a general said on
Wednesday.
Previously, the city was largely under
the control of the Taliban and militants used it as a base to prepare
bombs and plan attacks, said General Zafarullah Khan, the top commander
in rugged North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.
"North
Waziristan had transformed into a hub and safe haven for terrorists of
all colors and creeds," he said during a media trip to Miranshah. "But
with the operation, 80 percent of Miranshah and the adjoining areas
has been cleared."
The offensive in North
Waziristan began on June 15, following months of failed negotiations
between the government and the militants. Taliban attacks continued
during the talks. A brazen assault last month on the airport in the
southern city of Karachi killed 34.
Following
that attack, the army sent fighter jets to bomb suspected militant
hideouts in North Waziristan, the base of some of the country's most
feared al Qaeda linked terrorists.
The army then
ordered the entire civilian population of North Waziristan - estimated
to be around half-a-million people - to leave. The ground offensive was
launched on June 30.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A
suspected American drone fired two missiles at a compound in a troubled
Pakistani tribal region on Thursday, killing six militants, two
intelligence officials said.
The strike happened in the town of in Datta Khel in North Waziristan,
where Pakistan army last month launched a much-awaited operation
against local and foreign militants who use the region to carry out
attacks in Pakistan, the officials said.
The identity of the slain men was not immediately known and the
officials said they were still trying to get details. They spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the
media.
U.S. drone strikes are a serious source of tension between Washington
and Islamabad. The Pakistani government regularly denounces the strikes
as a violation of the country's sovereignty.
Thursday's strike took place in the same region where the Pakistan
army on June 15 launched a major offensive against Pakistani Taliban, Al
Qaeda and other militants. Datta Khel is about 30 miles west of Miran
Shah, the main town in North Waziristan bordering Afghanistan.
Mortar strike on CIA complex seen as opportunistic, militarised operation triggered by earlier burning of diplomatic mission
Newly revealed testimony from US military commanders involved in the
response to the Benghazi attacks in 2012 suggests that the perpetrators
of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from
those who penetrated the US diplomatic mission the evening before and
set it ablaze, killing the ambassador, Chris Stevens, and another
American.
The second attack, which killed two security
contractors, showed clear military training, retired General Carter Ham
told Congress in closed-door testimony released late on Wednesday. The
assault probably was the work of a new team of militants, seizing on
reports of violence at the diplomatic mission in Libya the night before
and hitting the Americans while they were most vulnerable.
The
testimony was seen by the Associated Press prior to its release and adds
further detail about the events of 11 September 2012, which have
stirred bitter recriminations in the US, including Republican-led
congressional investigations and campaign-season denunciations of the
Obama administration because it made inaccurate statements about the
attacks. The testimony underscores a key detail that sometimes has been
lost in the debate: that the attacks were two distinct events over two
days on two different buildings, perhaps by unrelated groups.
The
US government still has not fully characterised the first attack in
which, according to Ham and eight other military officers, men who
seemed familiar with the lightly protected diplomatic compound breached
it and set it on fire, killing Stevens and communications specialist
Sean Smith. A mob of looters then overran the facility.
Ten thousand families
have fled the north Yemeni city of Amran to escape a battle between
Zaidi Shia rebels and the military, the Red Crescent says.
A further 5,000 families are said to be trapped inside the
city, about 50km (30 miles) north of the capital Sanaa, after rebels
overran several areas.
The clashes erupted last week after a ceasefire collapsed and troops reportedly attacked rebel positions.
Medics and officials said at least 60 people had been killed and 180 wounded.
The rebels, known as Houthis, have staged periodic uprisings
over the past 10 years in an effort to win greater autonomy for their
strongholds in the far north.
In February, they seized areas of Amran province in fighting
that left more than 150 people dead, and at least 120 others were
reportedly killed in another flare-up of violence in June.
'Call for help'
The Yemen Red Crescent Society issued a "call for help" on Tuesday on behalf of the civilians trapped by the fighting in Amran.
A medic at the city's main hospital told the AFP news agency
that the bodies of 60 people had been brought to the hospital since
Saturday.
However, local officials and witnesses told Reuters that more
than 200 people had been killed, 100 of them on Tuesday alone as the
rebels overran the city. Dozens of bodies were lying in the streets,
they said.
DONETSK, Ukraine – Divisions are appearing among the pro-Russia separatists fighting the Ukrainian government.
The head of one influential rebel battalion in eastern Ukraine says
he will not submit to the command of the military leader of the
separatist insurgency.
Vostok commander Alexander Khodakovsky also said Thursday he would
not abandon the rebel-held city of Donetsk even if ordered to do so. No
such order has been issued, but rebel troops did flee from their
stronghold in Slovyansk last weekend.
In the past two weeks, Ukrainian government troops have halved the
amount of territory held by the rebels. Now they are vowing a blockade
of Donetsk.
In another sign of deteriorating morale among rebels, several dozen
militia fighters in Donetsk abandoned their weapons and fatigues
Thursday, telling their superiors they were returning home.
The German government has
ordered the expulsion of a CIA official in Berlin in response to two
cases of alleged spying by the US.
The official is said to have acted as a CIA contact at the US
embassy, reports say, in a scandal that has infuriated German
politicians.
A 31-year-old German intelligence official was arrested last week on suspicion of spying.
Reports on Wednesday said an inquiry had also begun into a German soldier.
"The representative of the US intelligence services at the
embassy of the United States of America has been told to leave Germany,"
government spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
The chairman of the Bundestag (parliament) committee
overseeing the German secret service said the action was taken because
of American spying on German politicians and its failure to co-operate
and provide adequate responses.
The US has not denied allegations that a German intelligence
agency employee arrested last week was passing secret documents to the
US National Security Agency (NSA).
However, the latest reports that a soldier within the defence
ministry was also spying for the US were considered more serious.
Although no arrest was made, searches were carried out on Wednesday at
the ministry and elsewhere.
The US and Germany have been close allies for decades but
relations were hit last year when it emerged that Chancellor Angela
Merkel's mobile phone had been monitored by the NSA.
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Chinese hackers broke
into a US government network in an attempt to gain personal information
on thousands of employees, US media report.
First reported by the New York Times, the hackers in March allegedly targeted those applying for high-level security clearance positions.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the incident an "attempted intrusion" that was still under investigation.
The report has not officially been confirmed by the US homeland security.
Both countries have long accused each other of cyberspying.
The US acknowledges that it conducts espionage but says
unlike China it does not spy on foreign companies and pass what it finds
to its own companies, the BBC's China editor Carrie Gracie says.
Beijing typically shrugs accusations off as a smear motivated
by those who find its growing technological might hard to bear, our
correspondent adds.
Mr Kerry told the Associated Press news agency on Thursday he
and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who are in China as part of an annual
forum between the two governments, were only notified of the accusation
of wrongdoing after the gathering's conclusion.
"We did not raise it in specific terms," he said about the
latest accusation, adding it did not appear sensitive material was
compromised. "We raised the subject, obviously."
An unnamed official told the New York Times that the March
attack was traced to China, but it is unclear if the latest accusation
was connected to the government - a China spokesman said it was
"resolutely opposed" to internet hacking.
"Some of the American media and cyber-security firms are
making constant efforts to smear China and create the so-called China
cyber threat," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
The fundamental question about the IRS targeting the president’s
political enemies is whether it was corruption or incompetency. A newly
obtained email from the central figure in the scandal, former IRS
executive Lois Lerner, isn’t helping the administration’s claim
that the abuses were unintentional: “I was cautioning folks about email
and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for
emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails --
so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails,” Lerner wrote
to a colleague before the scandal went public. Lerner goes on inquire
about whether members of Congress could get access to an instant
messaging system used by the agency. Not only does this suggest bad
motives but casts further shadows on the agency’s claims that emails
from Lerner and other figures in the targeting scandal were accidentally
lost in a computer crash and are unrecoverable. Given Lerner’s apparent
effort to obstruct investigators, the administration’s long-silent
internal investigation looks less and less credible.
WASHINGTON -- The scandal-plagued Department of Veterans Affairs is
systematically overpaying clerks, administrators and other support
staff, according to internal audits, draining tens of millions of
dollars that could be used instead to ease the VA's acute shortage of
doctors and nurses.
The jobs of some 13,000 VA support staff have
been flagged by auditors as potentially misclassified, in many cases
resulting in inflated salaries that have gone uncorrected for as long as
14 years.
Rather than moving quickly to correct these costly
errors, VA officials two years ago halted a broad internal review
mandated by federal law. As a result, the overpayments continue.
Moreover,
in the two years since thousands of misclassified jobs were identified,
hundreds of additional positions have been filled at improperly high
salaries. Internal VA documents obtained by The Huffington Post show
that between September 2013 and May 2014, for instance, overpayments in
annual salaries for the latter jobs alone came to $24.4 million, not
counting benefits.
In May alone, senior VA classification
specialists identified 284 probably misclassified positions newly posted
on the federal jobs site, USAJobs. Once filled, those jobs would result in estimated overpayments of $3.3 million per year.
For
that amount of money, the VA could instead hire five neurosurgeons, 10
psychiatrists and five suicide prevention case managers at the average
salaries currently offered on USAJobs.
DALLAS — President Obama on Wednesday
forcefully defended his decision not to visit the Texas border with
Mexico to view a burgeoning humanitarian crisis, saying he’s “not
interested in photo ops” and challenging Congress to give him new
authority to respond to the situation.
“Nothing has taken place down there that I’m not intimately aware
of,” Obama said during a hastily arranged news conference here, where he
began a two-day visit to the state for Democratic fundraising and an
economic event. “This is not theater.”
His remarks came after a meeting with Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and
local leaders to discuss his administration’s response to an influx of
tens of thousands of foreign children, mostly from Central America, who
have entered the state illegally.
Obama, under mounting pressure from members of both parties to view the border situation firsthand, said he has been well briefed by his Cabinet aides and called on Congress to quickly approve $3.7 billion in emergency funding to help manage the influx.
A gunman has surrendered
to police in the United States after allegedly shooting dead six people,
including four of his own children, near Houston.
One of the suspect's daughters is in a critical condition
after being shot in the head, but she was able to direct police to him.
After a 20-minute chase, the man's car was surrounded and he gave himself up following a two-hour stand-off.
Police said the incident appeared to have started over a domestic dispute.
"It appears this stems from a domestic issue with a breakup in the
family, from what our witness has told us", a police press spokesman
said.
The gunman and his wife were estranged and she was not in the state of Texas at the time, police said.
Police described the suspect as a man in his 30s with a beard who was "cool as a cucumber".
When approached by officers he was "just sitting in his car looking out at us," said Sgt Thomas Gilliland.
There followed "two hours of constant talking with a man armed with a pistol to his head and who had just killed six people".
Critical condition
Police had been called to a house about 18:00 (23:00 GMT) and
found three children and two adults dead, a Harris County Sheriff's
Office statement said.
A fourth child died in hospital. The children ranged in age
from 4 to 13. The two adults are also believed to be related to the
suspect.
Two of the children who died had been adopted.
The suspect's 15-year old daughter, who alerted police to the shooting, is currently in critical condition in hospital.
She warned police that her father was heading for her grandparents' home, allowing them to intercept him on the way.
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