TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
23 August 2013 Last updated at 03:58 ET
Israeli jets bomb Lebanon target after rocket strike
Israeli jets have bombed a target south of Beirut a day after rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel.
They targeted a "terror site" near the coastal town of Naameh, between Beirut and Sidon, the Israeli military said.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) said one of its bases had been hit.
But the group denied any involvement in Thursday's rocket attack into Israel. Neither incident caused casualties or much damage.
Iron dome
The Israeli military, in a statement, said its air force "targeted a terror site located between Beirut and Sidon in response to a barrage of four rockets launched at northern Israel yesterday".
"The pilots reported direct hits to the target," the statement said, according to AFP news agency.
PFLP-GC spokesman Ramez Mustapha confirmed the group's base at Naameh was targeted by Israeli war planes at around 04:00 local time (01:00 GMT) "without causing any victims or damage".
The PFLP-GC, a Palestinian group known to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, denied it fired any rockets into Israel.
Al-Qaeda linked militant group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, said it carried out the attack.
The four rockets were fired from the Tyre region of southern Lebanon.
They caused some minor damage at a kibbutz near the Israeli coastal town of Nahariya.
An Israeli military spokesman said one of the rockets was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system.
Rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel intermittently by militant groups since the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2006
A murder plain and simple. Deserves the full extent of the law.Nidal Hasan convicted of Fort Hood killings
By Billy Kenber, Updated: Friday, August 23, 4:43 PM
Nidal Malik Hasan faces a possible death sentence after being found guilty Friday of killing 13 people and wounding dozens more when he opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas in November 2009.
Hasan, 42, a U.S.-born Muslim who acted as his own attorney, was convicted of 13 charges of premeditated murder and 32 of attempted murder by a panel of senior officers after almost seven hours of deliberations.
He stared at the panel’s president, a female colonel, as she read the verdict, but he showed no reaction, according to news agencies. Several survivors of the attack and relatives of those killed were in court, and some began to cry after Hasan and the panel had left the room.
The case will now move to a sentencing phase, during which more witnesses may be called and Hasan could testify before a punishment is handed down.
The unanimous verdict brings proceedings a step closer to ending one of the most painful chapters in recent U.S. military history. The FBI and Defense Department have both received criticism for failing to spot warning signs that Hasan had become radicalized, and survivors have accused the government of abandoning them and depriving them of financial benefits.
Hasan, who was paralyzed from the chest down after being shot by an Army civilian police officer during the rampage and who uses a wheelchair ,admitted responsibility for the shooting at the start of the trial, saying he had “switched sides.”
Aside from a brief opening statement and a few questions of prosecution witnesses, the military psychiatrist showed little interest in mounting a defense. Hasan, who was prohibited by military law from entering a guilty plea, declined to call any witnesses, testify himself or give a closing argument.
At a pretrial hearing, the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, ruled that Hasan could not defend himself by arguing that he carried out the killings to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.
Instead, the defendant chose to make his case to the public through a series of communiques and authorized leaks to newspapers, arguing that he was waging jihad because of the United States’ “illegal and immoral aggression against Muslims” in Iraq and Afghanistan. In another document, it emerged he had told a mental-health panel that “if I died by lethal injection, I would still be a martyr.”
During the court-martial, Osborn refused a request by Hasan’s three standby lawyers to limit their role because they believed the defendant was trying to secure a death sentence.
Experts said that in spite of Hasan’s apparent desire to be executed, it will be years before a potential death sentence could be carried out.
Under the military’s justice system, there are several automatic appeal stages, during which lawyers are likely to be appointed to represent Hasan, regardless of the defendant’s wishes.
After a sentence is handed down, the court’s records and findings will have to be reviewed and approved by a military official known as the convening authority.
The case will then enter the appellate phase, going before the appeals courts for the Army and the armed forces. The case can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Finally, the president must sign off on the death sentence. The last time an active-duty soldier was executed was in 1961.
Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, said he expected the appeals process to take several years. “It’s most likely to be the next president that’s going to have to make the final decision,” he said.
Greg Rinckey, a former U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps attorney, said the appeals courts were highly unlikely to allow Hasan to represent himself and that his appointed attorney could lodge a number of challenges.
“Part of defense strategy in this case will be delays . . . [and] I think they’re going to file mental-health issues, whether he had the capacity to stand trial, ineffective assistance of counsel,” Rinckey said.
The military trial, which lasted 2 1 / 2 weeks, took place almost four years after the mass shooting because of legal delays, with Hasan twice dismissing his legal team. There was also protracted argument before he won the right to keep his beard.
During hearings, held at a courtroom a few miles from the site of the shooting on the sprawling Texas Army post, the defendant declined the opportunity to cross-examine some of his victims.
Hasan had been due to deploy to Afghanistan within a few weeks of the attack, and prosecutors presented evidence of his meticulous planning. The Army major and psychiatrist chose the most high-tech, high-capacity weapon available at a gun store in Killeen, Tex., and trained himself at a local firing range before giving away some of his belongings on the day of the shooting.
Shortly after 1 p.m. on Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan walked into Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center with two guns, shouted “Allahu akbar!” meaning “God is great,” and opened fire, the court was told.
His victims were almost all soldiers who were waiting for blood testing. The sole civilian killed was shot as he attempted to tackle Hasan using a chair, according to testimony.
Hasan’s rampage exposed a number of failings by the Defense Department, which a Pentagon report concluded was unprepared for internal threats, and by the FBI. On one occasion, Hasan gave a presentation to senior Army doctors in which he discussed Islam and suicide bombers and warned that Muslims should be allowed to leave the armed forces as conscientious objectors to avoid “adverse events.”
The FBI was also aware that the 42-year-old major had exchanged 18 e-mails with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical U.S.-born Islamic cleric who was a leading figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula before he was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011. However, the e-mails were dismissed as legitimate research, and the Defense Department was not informed.
Survivors have alleged that warnings were ignored because of “political correctness,” and many have also bitterly contested a decision to categorize the mass shooting as “workplace violence” rather than a terrorist attack.
More than 130 victims of the shooting and their family members have joined a lawsuit seeking damages and enhanced benefits from the U.S. government.
Reacting to Friday’s verdict, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said in a statement: “The victims and families have had to wait for far too long for today’s decision, but I hope they can take some relief in today’s outcome as they and the entire Fort Hood community continues to grieve.”
He added: “We must turn our attention to ensuring that the victims of this horrible tragedy and their families receive the full honors and benefits bestowed upon soldiers who are wounded or killed in overseas combat zones.”
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said: “Nidal Hasan’s cowardly attack on our military was a deliberate act of terror against our country. This guilty verdict affirms we are a nation of laws, honors the victims of this heinous act, and proves that, even in the face of unspeakable tragedy, we will never waver from the core principles for which they gave their lives: freedom, liberty and democracy.”
During the sentencing phase, the prosecution and defense can present evidence on the impact of the crime and any mitigating circumstances. Three-quarters of the military jury must vote to approve a prison term of more than 10 years; a unanimous decision is required for the death penalty.
Arrest made in Spokane beating death of WWII vet
By Ed Payne and Amanda Watts,(CNN) -- Spokane police arrested one 16-year-old boy and are looking for another in connection with the beating death of an 88-year-old World War II veteran this week, authorities said Friday.
The arrested teen has been charged with first-degree robbery and first-degree murder. Police said they're looking for the other suspect, named by police as Kenan Adams-Kinard, 16.
Police said the victim -- Delbert Belton -- was beaten and left for dead by two teens outside a lounge in Spokane, Washington, where he loved to go play pool.
The motive? Police don't have one. The teens appeared to have picked him at random, authorities say.
A retired aluminum company worker who served in the Pacific, Belton, friends say, took a bullet in the leg during the Battle of Okinawa. He survived that attack.
Spokane Police are looking for Kenan Adams-Kinard, 16, in connection with the beating death of Delbert Belton.
Spokane Police are looking for Kenan Adams-Kinard, 16, in connection with the beating death of Delbert Belton.
Delbert Belton survived being wounded in action during the Battle of Okinawa only to be beaten to death by two teens in Spokane, Washington.
Delbert Belton survived being wounded in action during the Battle of Okinawa only to be beaten to death by two teens in Spokane, Washington.
But on Wednesday night, Belton -- affectionately called "Shorty" by friends for his height -- headed to the Eagles Lodge, where he was a regular.
Police found him in the parking lot, with serious head injuries.
The Spokane County Medical Examiner's Office on Friday said the cause of the death was blunt facial and head injuries. It also said in a news release that the manner of Belton's Thursday death was homicide.
"It does appear random," Spokane police Lt. Mark Griffiths told reporters. "It appears he was assaulted in the parking lot and there was no indication that he would have known these people prior to the assault."
Officers had been using dogs to search for the suspects, swept for fingerprints on the chain link fence in the area where they were last seen headed, and scoured through surveillance tapes.
Spokane Police Chief Frank Straub Jr. said Friday he is "asking for the community's assistance in helping us to locate Adams-Kinard and bring him to justice."
"We would encourage Mr. Adams-Kinard to surrender immediately," Straub said.
It's the second time in a week that a seemingly random attack by teenagers has claimed a life.
On August 16, a 23-year-old Australian baseball player attending college in Oklahoma was gunned down in the town of Duncan.
One of three teens police arrested in that shooting said they carried it out because "we were bored and didn't have anything to do."
'All there is is bad news'
The randomness of the two attacks was not lost on Ted Denison, who's been friends with Belton for a long time.
"It's really depressing," Denison told CNN late Thursday night. "Seems that all there is is bad news."
The two men met more than 20 years ago and worked on cars together.
"We were mechanic buddies," the 42-year-old Denison said. "We just kind of kicked right along."
But the friends also hung out together outside the garage.
"We went dancing on Saturday nights," Denison said. "We went out to breakfast together."
Belton stopped by the Eagles Lodge two or three times a week. He played pool, but by his own admission, wasn't too good at it.
"He went up there and played pool, met with some of the guys he used to work with at Kaiser Aluminum," where he was employed more than 30 years, Denison said.
His wife died several years ago. The World War II veteran is survived by a son, 65.
'It didn't seem real'
Barbara Belton, Delbert Belton's daughter-in-law, told CNN's Alina Machado in a phone interview that Delbert's friends first called her about the attack.
The news was shocking and disorienting.
"It's almost like you're not really focusing in on what they're saying," she said from the Spokane area. "It didn't seem real."
Later, she said, an intensive care unit doctor told her that he had been beaten so badly, doctors "couldn't stop the bleeding."
She broke the bad news to Belton's son: her husband, William, who is suffering from cancer and happened to be in the hospital
"He was upset," she said. "It's a terrible way to have to die."
Asked what she would say to the perpetrators, she said: "What motivates you to do such a horrendous thing to an old man?"
"He didn't drive a big fancy car. He didn't dress in expensive clothes. He didn't have a lot of money. He had very little money," she said. "What did they think they were going to get from this man?"
Waiting for a friend
On Wednesday night, Belton was outside the lodge waiting for a friend because he didn't want her to walk home alone, Lillian Duncan told The Spokesman-Review newspaper.
"He was so awesome," Duncan told the paper. "Anybody that didn't get to know him missed out on a wonderful angel in their life."
Outside the lodge Thursday, friends and strangers alike left flowers, flags and messages for Belton.
Belton never had problems outside the lodge before -- no threats, no altercations, Denison said.
"If he had, I would have made sure I was there."
