Report: Ex-Gitmo detainee joins al-Qaida in Yemen

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.

The announcement, made this week on a Web site commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, which has long posed a vexing terrorism problem for the U.S.

The terror group's Yemen branch — known as "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden's ancestral home.

The Internet statement, which could not immediately be verified, said al-Shihri was the group's second-in-command in Yemen, and his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372.

"He managed to leave the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia) and join his brothers in al-Qaida," the statement said.

Documents released by the U.S. Defense Department show that al-Shihri was released from the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in November 2007 and transferred to his homeland. The documents confirmed his prisoner number was 372.

Saudi Arabian authorities wouldn't immediately comment on the statement. A Yemeni counterterrorism official would only say that Saudi Arabia had asked Yemen to turn over a number of wanted Saudi suspects who fled the kingdom last year for Yemen, and a man with the same name was among those wanted. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press and would not provide more details.

Yemen is a U.S. ally in the fight against terror, but it also has been the site of numerous high-profile, al-Qaida-linked attacks including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors.

Yemen's government struggles to maintain order. Many areas of the California-size country are beyond government control and Islamic extremism is strong. Nearly 100 Yemeni detainees remain at Guantanamo, making up the biggest group of prisoners.

Al-Shihri's case highlights the complexity of Obama's decision to shut down the detention center within a year despite the absence of rehabilitation programs for ex-prisoners in some countries, including Yemen. The Pentagon also has said more former ex-detainees appear to be returning to the fight against the U.S. after their release.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who heads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said the reports about al-Shihri should not slow the Obama administration's determination to quickly close the prison.

"What it tells me is that President Obama has to proceed extremely carefully. But there is really no justification and there was no justification for disappearing people in a place that was located offshore of America so it was outside the reach of U.S. law," she told CBS's "The Early Show."

But Rep. Pete Hoekstra, of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the executive order Obama signed Thursday to close the facility as "very short on specifics."

Interviewed on the same program, he said there are indications that as many as 10 percent of the men released from Guantanamo are "back on the battlefield. They are attacking American troops."

The militant Web statement said al-Shihri's identity was revealed during a recent interview with a Yemeni journalist. That journalist, Abdelela Shayie, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that 35-year-old Saudi man had joined the kingdom's rehabilitation program after his release and got married before leaving for Yemen.

Shayie said al-Shihri told him that several other former Guantanamo detainees had also come to Yemen to join al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is an umbrella group of various cells. Its current leader is Yemen's most wanted fugitive Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, who was among 23 al-Qaida figures who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006.

Since the prison break, al-Qaida managed to regroup. It set up training camps, has attracted hundreds of young men and launched dozens of bloody attacks against Westerners, government institutions and oil facilities. Most recently, gunmen and two vehicles packed with explosives attacked the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in September, killing 17 people, including six militants. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to the Defense Department, al-Shihri was stopped at a Pakistani border crossing in December 2001 with injuries from an airstrike and recuperated at a hospital. Within days of his release, he became one of the first detainees sent to Guantanamo.

Al-Shihri allegedly traveled to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, provided money to other fighters and trained in urban warfare at a camp north of Kabul, according to a summary of the evidence against him from U.S. military review panels at Guantanamo.

He also was accused of meeting extremists in Iran and briefing them on how to enter Afghanistan, according to the documents.

Al-Shihri, however, said he traveled to Iran to buy carpets. He said he felt bin Laden had no business representing Islam, denied any links to terrorism and expressed interest in rejoining his family.

Mayor: suicide bomb kills 14 in Somali capital

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia – A suicide car-bomb attack near an African Union peacekeepers' base killed 14 people in the Somali capital on Saturday, the mayor of Mogadishu said.

The bombing occurred days before a planned deployment of Ugandan and Burundian soldiers to beef up the current peacekeeping contingent.

Most of southern and central Somalia is held by Islamic insurgents and peacekeepers and government forces come under regular attack in the capital.

Mayor Mohamed Osman Ali said it was unclear who was behind the attack.

"A suspected suicide car bomb exploded about 200 meters (yards) away from an African Union base," he said. "A government police officer suspected the car, which was driving at high speed, and opened fire. The suicide bomber then blew himself up."

Ali said one of the dead was a police officer and the others were all civilians. Fourteen others were wounded, he said. Three of the dead were women.

Ali Muse, who works for Mogadishu's ambulance service, said an exchange of gunfire and mortars following the bombing killed one person and wounded 18.

AU spokesman Bahoku Barigye said no peacekeepers were wounded in the attack. Last August, a car bomb attack targeted barracks housing Burundian peacekeepers.

Officials in Somalia's crumbling government warned of a security vacuum after their Ethiopian allies withdrew their last soldiers in early January. The government now controls only the parliamentary seat of Baidoa and a few city blocks in the capital.

Last month, the president resigned after months of government infighting. The Somali parliament is due to choose his replacement on Monday in Djibouti.

Ugandan army spokesman Maj. Felix Kuraigye said the 700 Ugandan troops headed for Somalia should be there by the end of the month if transport arrangements are finalized.

The arid, impoverished Horn of Africa nation has not had a functioning government since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew a socialist dictator.

Pirates operate off its lawless coastline and analysts fear the failed state is a harbor for international terrorists.

BBC under fire over Gaza charity appeal

BBC under fire over Gaza charity appeal

LONDON (AFP) – The BBC faced intense criticism on Saturday from the British government and campaigners after refusing to broadcast a charity appeal to raise emergency funds for people in the Gaza Strip.

The BBC is worried that broadcasting the appeal could compromise its impartiality and questions whether aid can be delivered efficiently in Gaza, where Palestinians say over 1,300 people died during Israel's 22-day offensive.

But the decision has provoked fierce criticism from Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government and Muslim groups, while demonstrators will take to the streets of London in protest later Saturday.

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander has urged the BBC to reconsider its decision.

"I think the British public can distinguish between support for humanitarian aid and perceived partiality in a conflict," he told BBC radio on Saturday.

"I really struggle to see, in the face of the immense human suffering in Gaza at the moment, that this is in any way a credible argument."

The Muslim Council of Britain said the BBC's decision not to show the appeal was "a serious dereliction of its public duty".

Its secretary-general Muhammad Abdul Bari added: "The excuses given by the BBC are simply untenable and the governors need to act quickly before the corporation's image is irretrievably tarnished."

The BBC's chief operating officer Caroline Thomson said that maintaining the BBC's impartiality was "clearly in conflicts as controversial as this... a real issue for us."

ITV announced on Saturday that it would show the appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

The DEC -- an umbrella group uniting respected charities like the British Red Cross and Oxfam -- stresses that it is non-political and works simply to address humanitarian need.

The Stop The War Coalition is organizing a demonstration starting outside the BBC's offices in central London later Saturday.

Stop The War, which estimates that the ban on broadcasting the appeal could cost up to 10 million pounds in donations, is urging protesters to bring children's dolls wrapped in white shrouds to lay on the steps of the BBC.

The group has organized big rallies opposed to the violence in Gaza in London for the past few weekends.

Around 5,000 people also took to the streets of Birmingham, for a pro-Palestinian demonstration, while around 100 Cambridge University students have occupied the law faculty there in protest at Israel's attacks on Gaza.

The BBC's news coverage of the region frequently provokes controversy among commentators in Britain.

In 2006, its board of governors published an independent report into its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which found no evidence of deliberate or systematic bias.

But the report did say that coverage sometimes "in important respects, presents an incomplete... and misleading picture".

It also cited a "failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation."

Gazans crowd markets and mosques as calm holds

By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Fishermen cautiously sailed out, and market vendors unpacked fruit and vegetables. Outside wrecked mosques, men spread carpets on the sandy ground. Gaza edged back toward normalcy Friday, the first Muslim day of prayer since the end of Israel's war with Hamas.

The United Nations said some 200,000 children who study at U.N. schools were due in class Saturday for the first time since Israel launched its offensive Dec. 27. Thirty schools were damaged in the fighting, U.N. spokesman Christopher Gunness said.

Israel opened its pedestrian crossing into the Gaza Strip, allowing free access for international journalists and humanitarian workers for the first time since before the offensive.

But the U.N. humanitarian chief, John Holmes, said all of Gaza's border crossings needed to be further opened to rush international aid into the besieged coastal strip.

"I hope we can keep at least the humanitarian side of it, the early recovery side, the essential repairs, free of politics, as we always try to do for immediate emergency relief," Holmes said during a tour of Gaza.

Israel and Egypt have blocked most traffic into Gaza since the Islamic militants of Hamas violently seized control of the territory in June 2007 from forces supporting moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The three-week onslaught, which Israel ordered seeking to halt Hamas rocket attacks, killed 1,285 Palestinians, mostly civilians, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights says. Damage has been estimated at $2 billion. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, died during the war, according to the Israeli government.

In Shati, a huge refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, hundreds of people crowded the market after Friday prayers, snapping up produce that farmers had been unable to bring out to sell during the bombardment as well as goods smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt.

"I'm buying all I couldn't get during the fighting," said Hosson Bakheet, who planned to cook a big dish of turnips for her family.

She said that was all she could afford because her husband, a construction worker, is unemployed.

Nearby, a farmer was discounting his vegetables because they were damaged in the fighting. "`Phosphorus' cauliflower for only 2 shekels (50 cents)," shouted Adham Taya, who contended the burns on his vegetables were caused by white phosphorus that fell on his fields.

The Israeli army says it has launched an internal investigation into whether its troops inappropriately used phosphorus shells in civilian areas. The intensely hot munitions are used to create smoke screens and to illuminate the night.

On the nearby shore, half the refugee camp's fishing boats went out to sea Friday for the first time since the offensive began, said Slimane Salama, head of Shati's fishermen.

News that Israeli naval vessels blockading the territory wouldn't shoot at the fishing boats came through Arab television stations, he said.

"The problem is there's very little fish" within the three-mile range allowed to the fishermen, Salama said. He said Israeli gunboats fired at fishermen trying to sail farther offshore Friday morning. The military confirmed its vessels fired warning shots at boats.

Despite the signs that life was returning to normal in Gaza, the 6-day-old truce remained fragile. A Palestinian farmer was wounded by Israeli gunfire along the border, Gazan health officials said. Israel's military said it had no information on the incident.

The sides' main demands for a durable cease-fire remained unmet. Israel insists on guarantees that Hamas stop smuggling weapons into Gaza and stop firing rockets at southern Israel, while Hamas wants Gaza's borders open.

Associated Press journalists saw many smuggling tunnels already back in business Thursday along Gaza's border with Egypt.

In Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered a French warship deployed immediately off Gaza to bolster the cease-fire by helping guard against weapons smuggling. He said France would "coordinate closely" with the U.S. and other European nations to block the arms traffic.

Despite the Israeli ground offensive and air bombardment, Hamas appeared firmly in control of Gaza, although most of its top leaders remained in hiding.

"The Zionists thought they hammered Hamas, but they are mistaken," Hamas official Mushir al-Masri said in his sermon at the destroyed Khulafa al-Rashideen mosque. "We, the Palestinians, have a strategic weapon that is faith and patience," he said, vowing revenge.

John Ging, head of the U.N. agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, said the war had created "more extremists" on both sides of the conflict. He proposed "independent, objective and credible" investigations into allegations of wrongdoing by both Israel and Hamas during the fighting.

Human rights groups contend Israel used disproportionate force and failed to protect civilians. Israel says it did all it could to avoid civilian casualties. The groups criticize Hamas for firing rockets at Israeli civilians and say it used Gazan civilians as shields.

Gaza-based Hamas officials returned to Egypt to hold talks with Egyptian mediators Sunday that they said would focus on a "working paper" to consolidate the cease-fire.

"We're here in Cairo to talk about arrangements to end the siege on Gaza and to open the border crossings," Salah Bardawil, a Gaza-based Hamas negotiator, told Al-Jazeera television.

Another official said the talks also would address the fate of Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit, a soldier who was captured by Gaza militants in 2006.

NY gov picks upstate NY congresswoman for Senate

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. – Gov. David Paterson appointed Democratic U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand on Friday to fill New York's vacant Senate seat, finally settling on a woman from a largely rural, eastern district of the state to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"For many in New York state, this is the first time you've heard my name and you don't know much about me," Gillibrand said at a ceremony in Albany. "Over the next two years, you will get to know me. And, more importantly, I will get to know you."

The appointment, which requires no further confirmation, came one day after Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy, abruptly withdrew from consideration.

Gillibrand, 42, has been considered one of the top contenders in Paterson's selection process, along with Kennedy and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Gillibrand had served as Cuomo's special counsel when he was housing secretary under President Clinton and she worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton's first Senate campaign in 2000.

Paying tribute to her predecessor, Gillibrand said: "I can't tell you how many times she has personally inspired me to action."

Paterson stressed that he didn't choose Gillibrand because she was a woman or from upstate New York. "I believe I have found the best candidate to become the next United States senator from New York," he said.

The appointment lasts until 2010, when a special election will be held to fill the final two years of Clinton's term. Clinton is now serving as secretary of state in President Barack Obama's administration.

Kennedy called the governor around midday Wednesday and told him she was having second thoughts about the job, according to a person close to Paterson, who said she later decided to remain in contention, only to announce her withdrawal early Thursday in an e-mail.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, who wasn't among the 10 to 20 people Paterson said applied for the Senate appointment, immediately criticized the expected pick. The Democratic congresswoman, whose husband was killed and son wounded by a gunman on the Long Island Railroad in 1993, said Gillibrand's support of more conservative issues such as gun ownership rights was out of step with most New York Democrats.

McCarthy, 65, vowed to challenge Gillibrand herself in next year's primary or find a younger candidate to do so.

"I will certainly raise my voice and run if no one comes forward," McCarthy said in a telephone interview Friday. "Believe me, this is a personal issue for me. I don't think someone with a 100 percent NRA rating should be the next senator from New York."

During the news conference, Gillibrand complimented all of the state's female House delegation, offering an olive branch to McCarthy who she said has "provided outstanding leadership in fighting against gun violence and keeping our children safe. I pledge to work with her on her signature bill for updating background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals."

Near the end of her statement, Gillibrand again brought up the issue again, saying she would support gun control "but also protect our hunters' rights."

Despite criticism from some corners, Gillibrand is a proven vote-getter in a largely rural eastern New York district that sprawls from the mid-Hudson Valley to north of Albany. She defeated a long-term Republican incumbent in 2006 and won re-election last year by a wide margin.

"Gender plus geography equals Gillibrand," said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College. He said her upstate base would help Paterson's 2010 ticket, which otherwise would be dominated by New York City residents like himself.

"On the minus side, she's an unproven statewide vote-getter, a conservative `Blue Dog' Democrat who could face a primary challenge in 2010 and face a tough general election," Muzzio said.

Paterson has said he hopes to avoid a party challenge to the appointment, saying he wants his choice to be good enough to hold the seat for a decade or more.

Gillibrand, 42, becomes the only woman on a ticket that will include Paterson, Cuomo, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and senior U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer.

The pick came after a week in which Kennedy surprisingly withdrew from consideration and Paterson revealed he was considering Cuomo, who had refused to publicly express his interest. In the end, Paterson chose the up-and-comer over more established names.

But Paterson has said the first task of a new U.S. senator should be bringing more aid in the federal stimulus package back to New York. It's uncertain that Gillibrand has the background or pull to do that.

She voted last year against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill.

This consideration, as the state faces a historic fiscal crisis, was considered a strength for Kennedy, who is close to President Barack Obama and may have been owed a favor for her early endorsement of him; and Cuomo, who has ties and experience in Washington as President Bill Clinton's former housing secretary.

Gillibrand was an official in the Housing and Urban Development Department during the Clinton administration. She worked as a lawyer before challenging Republican John Sweeney in 2006 to represent New York's 20th District. Her upset win came after a police report showing that Sweeney's wife had called 911 in what appeared to be a domestic violence incident was leaked shortly before the election.

In November, Gillibrand defeated wealthy General Electric heir Sandy Treadwell. The former state Republican chairman was seen as one of the Republican Party's best chances to capture a congressional seat in New York.

Gillibrand graduated from Dartmouth College in 1988 and earned a law degree at UCLA in 1991. She is the daughter of Albany lobbyist Douglas Rutnik.

Obama reverses Bush abortion-funds policy

By LIZ SIDOTI and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information — an inflammatory policy that has bounced in and out of law for the past quarter-century. Obama's executive order, the latest in an aggressive first week reversing contentious Bush policies, was warmly welcomed by liberal groups and denounced by abortion rights foes.

The ban has been a political football between Democratic and Republican administrations since GOP President Ronald Reagan first adopted it 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.

A White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said Obama signed the executive order, without coverage by the media, late on Friday afternoon. The abortion measure is a highly emotional one for many people, and the quiet signing was in contrast to the televised coverage of Obama's Wednesday announcement on ethics rules and Thursday signing of orders on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and banning torture in the questioning of terror suspects.

His action came one day after the 36th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.

The Bush policy had banned U.S. taxpayer money, usually in the form of Agency for International Development funds, from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion as a family planning method.

Critics have long held that the rule unfairly discriminates against the world's poor by denying U.S. aid to groups that may be involved in abortion but also work on other aspects of reproductive health care and HIV/AIDS, leading to the closure of free and low-cost rural clinics.

Supporters of the ban say that the United States still provides millions of dollars in family planning assistance around the world and that the rule prevents anti-abortion taxpayers from backing something they believe is morally wrong.

The ban has been known as the "Mexico City policy" for the city a U.S. delegation first announced it at a U.N. International Conference on Population.

Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will oversee foreign aid, had promised to do away with the rule during the presidential campaign. Clinton visited the U.S. Agency for International Development earlier Friday but made no mention of the step, which had not yet been announced.

In a move related to the lifting of the abortion rule, Obama is also expected to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), probably in the next federal budget. Both he and Clinton had pledged to reverse a Bush administration determination that assistance to the organization violated U.S. law known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment.

The Bush administration had barred U.S. money from the fund, to contending that its work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. UNFPA has vehemently denied that it does.

Congress had appropriated $40 million to the UNFPA in the past budget year but the administration had withheld the money as it had done every year since 2002.

Organizations and lawmakers that had pressed Obama to rescind the Mexico City policy were jubilant.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the move "will help save lives and empower the poorest women and families to improve their quality of life and their future."

"Today's announcement is a very powerful signal to our neighbors around the world that the United States is once again back in the business of good public policy and ideology no longer blunts our ability to save lives around the globe," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Population Action International, an advocacy group, said that the policy had "severely impacted" women's health and that the step "will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don't have access to family planning."

Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers condemned Obama's decision.

"I have long supported the Mexico City Policy and believe this administration's decision to be counter to our nation's interests," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

"Coming just one day after the 36th anniversary of the tragic Roe v. Wade decision, this presidential directive forces taxpayers to subsidize abortions overseas — something no American should be required by government to do," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., called it "morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans to promote abortion around the world."

"President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.

Arab leaders criticize Canada's support of Israel

OTTAWA (AFP) – Arab ambassadors have complained to Canada's top diplomat about his "unbalanced" Mideast policies, which they said Friday favor Israel and disregard the plight of Palestinians.

"We've encouraged Canada to take a more balanced position, which takes into account the realities on the ground and does not side with one party," Amin Abou-Hassira, the Palestinian Authority's representative in Ottawa, told AFP.

Canada's position now is "unbalanced," he said.

The 15 envoys, including Abou-Hassira, met with Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon earlier this week to ask him why his official statements "do not reflect reality and place blame for the war in Gaza entirely on Hamas's rocket-firing into Israel," he said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, since its election in 2006, has been unabashedly pro-Israel.

Ottawa echoed the Jewish state in saying Hamas provoked its latest war with Israel by targeting Israeli civilians with crude rockets. And a minister blamed Hamas for 40 civilian casualties at a UN school bombed by Israel.

"The Palestinian movement's home-made rockets, which are more cries of hardship in the face of occupation and a heartless blockade than weapons of war, killed 13 Israelis in eight years," the diplomats told Cannon, according to a statement obtained by AFP.

"In 23 days, Israeli shells, tanks, aircraft, and warships have killed close to 1,500 Palestinians."

The Palestinian health ministry lists more than 1,300 dead and 5,000 wounded during Israel's 22-day Operation Cast Lead, while on the Israeli side three civilians and 10 soldiers died in combat and rocket strikes and dozens were wounded, according to official figures.

Canada, during Harper's administration, was the first to suspend aid to the Palestinian government after the election of Hamas in 2006.

Canada is also the only country to vote against a UN Human Rights Council resolution in Geneva to condemn Israel's offensive in Gaza.

The foreign ministry declined AFP's request for comment.

The Fall of United States of America-A soon Dismembered Nation

The fall of United States of America --a soon dismembered nation

A Research by Dr.Igor N. Panarin
Introduction of Igor N. Panarin (Russia)

Doctor of political sciences, professor of the Diplomatic Academy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia.

Prof. PANARIN is the author of nine books, «Infowar and power", "Infowar and world", "Infowar and election", and others, and of many political essays published in various journals.

Prof. PANARIN often takes part in different political discussions on the Russian TV on the main problems of Russian policy, development of relationships between USA and Russia and many others.

His main interests are history, philosophy, psychology, computer science, communication, election technology, conceptual problems of globalization, the theory and practice of infowar.


In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis.

Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker- faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar (Thanks to Interest based Banking System).

Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts.

He presented his theory at a recent round table discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker.
During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified. "

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S. He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S.

When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence.

Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence.

Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union.

Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic."

Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right.

He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.

He predicted that the USA would divide into six different territories, which may join other countries:

1. The Californian Republic - will become part of China or be under Chinese influence
2. Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho

3. The Texas Republic - Predicted to become a part of Mexico or be under Mexican influence
4. New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida

5. Atlantic America - May or may not join the European Union
6. Northeastern United States plus Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina

7. Central North American Republic - Predicted to become a part of Canada or be under Canadian influence
8. Midwest plus Montana, Wyoming and Colorado

9. Alaska - Predicted to go back to Russia

10. Hawaii - Would go to either China or Japan

US, Afghan villagers differ over 15 killed in raid

By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writers

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. coalition in Afghanistan opened an investigation into an overnight raid early Saturday that American commanders say killed 15 armed militants but that two Afghan officials say killed 11 civilians.

A detailed U.S. statement said multiple teams of militants fired on the coalition forces during a raid against a Taliban commander early Saturday in the eastern province of Laghman. The U.S. said a woman carrying a rocket-propelled grenade was among the 15 killed.

"We know the people who were killed were shooting at us," said Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan. "The people who were killed today were running around, maneuvering against our forces, and we killed them."

But Sayed Ahmad Safi, the spokesman for Laghman's governor, said that government intelligence reports indicated 11 of the dead were civilians, including three children and two females. Two of the dead were militants, he said.

Abdul Khaliq Hussaini, a member of parliament who represents Laghman, said he believed 16 people had been killed, including 11 civilians. The site of the raid — the village of Guloch — lies 40 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Kabul.

Julian said a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation had been launched.

Civilian deaths are a hugely sensitive topic between the Afghan government and the U.S. and NATO.

President Hamid Karzai last week told parliament that the U.S. and NATO have not heeded his calls to stop airstrikes in civilian areas. Karzai has recently sought to have more control over what kinds of activities U.S. and NATO forces can carry out.

The issue also sparks strong emotions among average Afghans and threatens to turn civilians against the international military mission.

"I'm ready to start jihad against the Americans," an unidentified Afghan man told a Kabul TV station during a protest Saturday in the capital of Laghman.

Earlier Saturday, Hamididan Abdul Rahmzai, the head of the provincial council in Laghman, said village elders arrived at his office hours after the early morning operation to complain that the 15 killed were innocent civilians.

During a call from an Associated Press reporter, Rahmzai relayed questions to the village elders directly, who angrily shouted that they would swear on the Quran, the Muslim holy book, that all those killed were civilians. The elders claimed that women and children were among the dead.

The villagers told Rahmzai that they are shepherds and have no ties to militants.

Evaluating competing claims from the U.S. or NATO militaries and Afghan officials or villagers is extremely difficult. Journalists and human rights monitors usually cannot reach the site of a raid because the territory is too dangerous.

Afghan villagers have been known to exaggerate civilian death claims in order to receive more compensation from the U.S. military, and officials have said that insurgents sometimes force villagers to make false death claims.

But the U.S. military has also been known to not fully acknowledge when it killed civilians.

After a battle in August in the village of Azizabad, the U.S. military at first said no civilians were killed. A day later it said about five died, and eventually a more thorough U.S. investigation found 33 civilians were killed. The Afghan government and the U.N. said 90 civilians were killed.

The Afghan government recently sent NATO headquarters a draft agreement that would give Afghanistan more control over future NATO deployments in the country and would prohibit NATO troops from conducting searches of Afghan homes.

Gaza children back to school amid cease-fire

By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Tens of thousands of children wearing uniforms and carrying satchels flocked back to schools in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, days after Israel ended its fierce military operation against the territory's militant Hamas rulers.

Children returning to school presents another step back to normality for Gaza's 1.4 million residents, seven days after a cease-fire was called, ending Israel's 3-week air and ground assault in the tiny coastal territory, aimed at stopping Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel.

The onslaught killed 1,285 Palestinians, including some 280 children, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed during the fighting, according to the government.

Along with Gaza's public schools, which have been run by Hamas since it took over the territory in 2007, the scores of schools run by the United Nations re-opened their doors to the 200,000 children who attend them.

"Of course, the first thing we have to do is a roll call to see who has, and who has not, survived the conflict," said U.N. spokesman Chris Gunness.

More than 30 U.N. schools were damaged in the fighting. The schools were also used as makeshift refuges by thousands of Gazans fleeing clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in border areas, and by others whose homes were destroyed in the fighting.

In the U.N.'s Fakhoura Elementary school in the northern Gaza Strip town of Jebalia, three chairs in an eighth-grade class were adorned with the names of students who were killed during the offensive.

During the fighting, Palestinian militants fired rockets from next to the school, where hundreds of Gazans had huddled, according to witnesses. Israeli forces responded by lobbing back mortars that hit near the school and killed around 40 people, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health officials.

Schoolteacher Bassam Salkha told his students to show their determination to live through studying hard. Other teachers took their students to play games in the courtyard, seeing who could clap the loudest.

The U.N.'s relations with Israel have been strained, most recently because Israeli military shelling in Gaza damaged around 50 buildings belonging to the international organization. Among them was the organization's main compound in Gaza City, which the U.N. and human rights groups said was hit by white phosphorous shells, setting its food warehouses ablaze.

The Israeli army says it has launched an internal investigation into whether its troops inappropriately used phosphorus shells in civilian areas. The intensely hot munitions are used to create smoke screens and to illuminate the night.

Many children were still afraid of going to school on Saturday, fearing renewed shelling.

One man accompanied his two grandchildren, who carried heavy school bags. "They said, granddad, take us to school," he said.

Spain, Portugal to set up renewable energy research centre

ZAMORA, Spain (AFP) – Spain and Portugal will set up a joint renewable energy research centre, the leaders of both nations said Thursday.

The Iberian Renewable Energy Centre in the southern Spanish city of Badajoz near the Portuguese border will help the two nations improve their expertise in this area, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said.

"This is absolutely essential for nations like Portugal and Spain since the reduction of our dependence on oil is strategic for our future," he said at a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The centre will be headed by Portugal's Antonio Sa da Costa, the current vice president of the European Renewable Energy Federation.

The socialist governments of both nations have made it a priority to boost spending on training and technology to make their economies more competitive.

Portugal, which is almost entirely dependent on imported energy, aims to collect 45 percent of its total power consumption from renewable sources like solar and wind power by 2010.

Spain aims to triple the amount of energy it derives from renewable sources by 2020. It is already among the three biggest producers of wind power in the European Union along with Germany and Denmark.

Socrates also re-affirmed that both nations aim to have a high-speed rail link between Lisbon and Madrid, and another between the Portuguese capital and Vigo in northern Spain, completed by 2013 despite calls from Portugal's main opposition party that it be scrapped.

"I don't want the country to fall behind and remain outside of the network of high-speed rail links in Europe," he said, calling the project "absolutely essential".

Portugal and Madrid have agreed that one of the stations along the high-speed rail link between Lisbon and Madrid will be between the border cities of Badajoz and Elvas in Portugal, Socrates said.

The Spanish government plans to have 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) of high-speed railway track in place by 2020, meaning 90 percent of Spain's population will live less than 50 kilometres from a bullet train station.

Earlier this month the leader of Portugal's centre-right Social Democrats, Manuela Ferreira Leite, said she would shelve the project if her party is elected in a general election expected at the end of the year.

Spain arrests suspected leaders of ETA political wing: report

MADRID (AFP) – A dozen suspected members of the new leadership of Batasuna, the banned political wing of the Basque separatist group ETA, were arrested overnight, Spanish media reported.

The arrests, on the orders of investigating judge Baltasar Garzon, took place in the Basque Country and Navarre region in northern Spain, according to media reports that cited anti-terrorism sources.

Police were searching for documents linking the radical Basque groups, Askatasuna and "Democracy 3,000,000," to Batasuna.

The two groups, which are seeking to run for Basque Country regional parliamentary elections in March, are suspected by the police of being fronts for Batasuna.

In national elections last year, two parties were prevented from running because they were suspected of being fronts for Batasuna, which was banned as a political party in 2003.

ETA has been blamed for the deaths of 825 people in a 40-year campaign for an independent Basque homeland on the Atlantic coast of northern Spain and southwestern France.

Barcelona sports center collapse kills at least 3

By MANU FERNANDEZ, Associated Press Writer

BARCELONA, Spain – Part of a sports center collapsed in high winds, killing at least three children and trapping and injuring others in the northern city of Barcelona, officials said Saturday.

An official with the region's Interior Ministry said "many children" were trapped in the debris, without offering specific figures. She spoke on condition of anonymity under agency rules.

State television broadcaster TVE said in its early afternoon news bulletin that children were preparing to go out and play on a baseball field when the accident happened.

The local newspaper La Vanguardia reported, citing unnamed municipal officials, that 16 other people were injured, two seriously. It did not say how many were children.

A woman who said she had seen the accident told Spanish national broadcaster TVE that the children were preparing to play on a baseball field when they took shelter under a viewing stand with a corrugated metal roof. A photograph on La Vanguardia's Web site showed emergency workers gathered around a collapsed brick wall and iron roof.

Freak weather conditions have cause winds to gust to 160 kph (100 mph) in many places throughout Spain.

A woman died when a wall fell on her in Barcelona and a traffic officer was killed by a falling tree in northwest Galicia.

The powerful storm also lashed southwestern France, with the state-run electricity generator reporting about a million homes without power and rail authorities halting traffic in the region.

Heavy rain and winds pounded the coast south of Bordeaux, and the city faced winds of up to 160 kilometers per hour.

French TV showed images including downed power cables, uprooted trees lying across roads, a car crushed under a collapsed wall, and a traffic light post that toppled over.

In Bordeaux's Gironde region, rescuers evacuated 19 residents of a retirement home after its rooftop was swept away. Authorities also evacuated campers from the pine forests in the sandy Landes region to the south.

All flights in Bordeaux and Toulouse were temporarily halted, and authorities in the region ordered a halt to tractor-trailer and tour bus traffic. The national railway operator stopped trains throughout the area.

Authorities in Toulouse ordered public parks shut. Some ski slopes in the south of the area hit were closed. France's national meteorological service said no letup was expected before mid-afternoon Saturday.

Russia says "ice thawing" with NATO: envoy

By Gleb Bryanski

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia sees its relations with NATO improving and wants the military alliance to succeed in Afghanistan, to reduce a regional threat, Russia's NATO envoy Dmitry Ragozin said Saturday.

Ambassadors from the 26-member alliance will meet in a joint council with Russia Monday for the first time since NATO suspended the sessions in protest at what it called Russia's "disproportionate" use of force against Georgia last August.

"The ice is thawing. An informal meeting of the Russia-NATO council is a de-facto resumption of work," Ragozin told Echo Moskvy radio station.

He said there was no set agenda for the meeting, which, if successful, could be followed by a meeting of foreign ministers in early spring. He also ruled out a Russia-NATO summit taking place this year.

The NATO-Russia Council is the principal forum for cooperation between Moscow and the alliance.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that Russia welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to review policy in Afghanistan and is ready to cooperate, including on supply routes for NATO forces.

NATO is anxious to find safe supply routes that would reduce reliance on Pakistan, where Taliban militants have been attacking trucks delivering goods to Western forces in Afghanistan.

General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander running American operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, visited four ex-Soviet states near Afghanistan in the past few days to press for new transport routes.

Ragozin said Russian intelligence suggested as much as half of NATO shipments through Pakistan is being stolen or destroyed by the Taliban and said Russia was keen to see NATO succeed there.

"I can responsibly say that in the case of NATO's defeat in Afghanistan, fundamentalists, inspired by this victory, will set their eyes on the north," Ragozin said.

"First they will hit Tajikistan, then they will try to break into Uzbekistan... If things turn out badly, in about 10 years our boys will have to fight well-armed and well-organized Islamists somewhere in Kazakhstan," Ragozin said.

The Soviet Union fought in Afghanistan for nearly 10 years, withdrawing its troops in 1989. Ragozin ruled out Russia sending troops to Afghanistan but said Russia needed to help NATO forces, acting on the U.N. mandate.

"We have been there and did not like it. But everything we can do to back the realization of the U.N. Security Council's resolution ... we need to do," he said.

Russia says ready to work with U.S. on Afghanistan

By Denis Dyomkin

TASHKENT (Reuters) – Russia welcomes President Barack Obama's decision to review policy in Afghanistan and is ready to cooperate, including on supply routes for NATO forces, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday.

"Let us hope the new U.S. administration will be more successful in the Afghan settlement than its predecessor," Medvedev told a news conference after talks with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

"We are ready for fully fledged and equal cooperation on security in Afghanistan, including with the United States," he added. "We are ready to work on the most complicated issues ... including the transit of nonmilitary goods."

Cooperation on Afghanistan has been the most successful project uniting NATO and Russia, whose relations froze after Moscow's brief war in Georgia last August.

Before the war, Russia agreed to allow nonmilitary NATO supplies to be delivered to Afghanistan across its territory bypassing Pakistan, where supply convoys face security risks.

NATO and Russia are expected to hold on Monday the first session of their council since the South Ossetia war. Russian officials have made clear the fate of the Afghan transit depends on how relations between Moscow and the alliance develop.

Medvedev's overtures to Obama are part of an effort by the Kremlin to use change in the White House to mend bilateral relations.

Russia, alarmed by a threat from Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to its Central Asian allies, had backed a U.S. drive to topple them in 2001.

But it later became more critical of the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan saying it had stopped short of stabilizing the country and failed to lessen the threat of Islamic radicalism and drug trafficking.

"The number of radicals is not declining in Afghanistan," Medvedev said. "Poverty continues to produce terrorism."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood welcomed Medvedev's offer.

"We certainly look forward to working with Russia on Afghanistan," he told reporters, saying the naming of Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. diplomat who brokered the 1995 accord that ended the Bosnian war, as a special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan was a sign of U.S. commitment.

"That in itself shows you how serious the administration is about trying to work on these issues and working with Russia will be a key component (of) that," he said.

Security risks are high for many regional leaders, including Karimov who violently stamped out a rebellion by opponents in the town of Andizhan in 2005.

Karimov told a news conference that apart from violence in Afghanistan he was concerned about rising tensions in Pakistan. "Radicals (in Uzbekistan) may be reinvigorated by the recent events in Pakistan," he said.

He said countries in the region should have a stronger say in efforts to restore peace in Afghanistan. "We offer to solve the problem through the involvement of regional states."

Earlier on Friday Karimov and Medvedev suggested the Shanghai Cooperation Organization -- grouping Russia, China and four ex-Soviet Central Asian states -- could initiate an international conference on Afghanistan.

Family survives Gaza war, returns to destruction

By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip – Mohammed Zayid returned to his northern Gaza neighborhood after the war to find nothing as it was.

Tank blasts had blown the front off the local bakery, bullet holes riddled the hall where his son was married and airstrikes had collapsed into rubble the store where he bought tea and Coca-Cola for guests. His home with its view of the Mediterranean was gone except for a pile of concrete and the reek of a rotting donkey nearby with two bullet holes in its back.

"I lost my head when I saw it," the 55-year-old fisherman recalled. "My whole house was gone. I felt dead right there."

Tens of thousands of Gazans, including the Zayid family, who fled the fighting returned to find their homes damaged and their neighborhood wrecked, marking a painful end to three weeks of war. Like the Zayids, many sought refuge in schools and hospitals, scrounged for food and struggled to shelter their children from death and violence.

Israel launched widespread air strikes across Gaza on Dec. 27, followed by a ground invasion a week later to stop Gaza's Hamas rulers from firing rockets at Israeli towns.

The war came to Mohammed Zayid on Jan. 3, when he awoke in his simple concrete home to the sounds of tank blasts and gunshots.

"If we had known there would be an attack we would have fled but we woke up in the morning and saw the tanks there," said Zayid, a father of six and a grandfather of 20.

He tied a white T-shirt to a stick and waved it over his head as he and 10 others ran from the house, leaving their money, his wife's gold and all their possessions behind, he said. He saw militants in a nearby building firing at the Israeli troops advancing up the sandy road, he said.

They ran to a house shared by his sons Hossam, 30, and Ghassan, 25. There, 34 family members including a dozen children crowded into a windowless back room. A shell soon exploded on the roof and another shattered the front balcony, so the family fled again, carrying the children as they walked to a United Nations school.

About 500 refugees were in the school and the family crowded into one classroom, said 23-year-old Wisal Zayid, Mohammed's daughter-in-law. They had no mattresses and she wrapped the youngest children in their only blanket. The adults stayed awake to watch over them, she said.

The next day, they knocked on doors of nearby homes to ask for food and blankets, Mohammed said, until someone used the mosque loudspeaker to ask neighbors for donations.

The school provided only canned meat, tuna and one pita a day per person, so the refugees pooled resources.

"Those who had money would help the others and those who had food would call the others to eat with them," Mohammed said.

Wisal said all felt safe in the school since it bore a U.N. flag. But on Jan 5. an Israeli missile hit the school, killing three boys, the U.N. said. Wisal said the three, ages 10, 17 and 19 were killed on their way to the bathroom.

"We ran away from death and found it in front of us," Mohammed said.

"Since the three of them were killed, my kids will never feel safe in school again," said Wisal, a mother of a 2-year-old girl and two boys, ages 4 and 6.

The family had no TV or radio, but heard the war all around them.

"We'd hear shooting nearby and airplanes and the kids would scream," Mohammed said. "Then we'd hear an explosion and they'd scream again."

After a tenuous cease-fire brought fighting to a halt on Jan. 17, the Zayids returned to find traces of vicious fighting throughout their neighborhood.

Tank tracks led up the sandy road from the ocean and most buildings along the simple main street bore the scars of tank fire. A number of homes had been reduced to rubble and a soccer field-sized orchard — once full of orange, apple and olive trees — had been bulldozed flat.

The minaret of the mosque where the men prayed had been blown off and the wedding hall where Hossam had danced with his bride the year before had been peppered with bullets.

Some residents said they saw militants firing at the army as they fled and Wisal found all of her home's doors busted open, though she didn't know if by militants or Israeli soldiers. The extended family's three homes were damaged.

Hossam and his brother Ghassan, both fishermen like their father, had been building their house for three years, Hossam said and had moved in after Hossam's wedding. "1000 blessings for the groom" was still written on the front wall in green paint under the busted balcony and softball-sized holes in the walls.

"It was a new house," Hossam said. "We were just putting it together but what can we do now?"

Wisal's house fared better so the whole family now lives there. They have replaced the shattered windows with plastic and cook on wood fires. Most sleep on the floor.

Wisal said her older children, aged 4 and 6, have begun wetting their beds. "We were terrified the whole time," she said. "I still can't be by myself at night."

On Friday, Mohammed woke early and walked to the ocean to fish for the first time since the war started. He and two of his sons had caught only three fish when an Israeli navy gunboat fired on them, they said.

As they reached shore, the boat shot their cart and the donkey they had brought to pull their catch home.

Mohammed doesn't think he'll fish again but knows no other work.

"We have always lived from the ocean and now we have no idea what we'll live from," he said.

Afghan students back in class after acid attacks

By NOOR KHAN and HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writers

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Teenage girls in blue and green burqas pour into the schoolyard, where they pull off their coverings, stuff them in their book bags and head to class. It almost seems as if the acid attacks never happened.

But though classes have resumed, the students, their parents and the school's principal remain on edge two months later. The principal says better security promised by the government hasn't come. Some girls are too afraid to tell reporters their names or let their pictures be taken.

In November, three teams of men on motorbikes sprayed acid from squirt guns and water bottles onto 15 schoolgirls and teachers as they walked to the Mirwais Mena girls school in Kandahar, the southern city that is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban.

One girl's face was so badly burned that she was flown to India for treatment. Four others are still being treated at hospitals in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.

The attackers' apparently hoped to scare girls from going to school. The Taliban banned girls from attending school during its 1996-2001 rule and insurgents in the south have repeatedly attacked schools in recent years as part of the insurgency against the government.

At first, the attacks worked.

"The school stayed empty for four days after the incident," said Mehmood Qaderi, the principal.

But after a campaign by Qaderi with parents and the government, nearly all of the school's approximately 1,500 students have returned.

Their attendance shows some Afghan families are willing to stand up to insurgents' attempts to sow chaos and fear in southern Afghanistan. But it wasn't easy, and it may not last.

The girls didn't return to class on their own, and many say they are still scared when they walk to school. One of the attack victims says the men who were arrested still manage to send her threats from jail.

The principal said his relatives are trying to persuade him to leave Afghanistan because he may be in danger. But Qaderi devoted so much energy and emotion to getting classes going again that he wants to stay.

He said that after a few days of empty desks he decided he would have to persuade the parents to let their daughters return. He called a meeting of families.

"I explained to the parents that if you do not send your girls to school, it means you are losing and the enemies are winning," said Qaderi, who like many Afghans goes by one name.

The parents offered agreement, and Qaderi thought he had succeeded. But a week later, most students were still staying at home.

Qaderi went to the government. He asked for police to be stationed in front of the school and on the main roads. He asked for buses for students who live farther away. He even asked for a pedestrian bridge to be built over a highway so girls could avoid dangerous traffic.

The provincial governor and the police chief agreed to all the demands, Qaderi said. Police started appearing outside the school, so Qaderi had another meeting with parents.

"I invited the fathers and mothers and said that the government promised they would provide security for the students," he said.

The parents agreed again, and this time girls started showing up.

"Now you see the classes are full. Almost every one is attending school, even the girl who was most seriously hurt," Qaderi said.

But the additional police lasted only two weeks and students are getting nervous, Qaderi said. The buses never appeared.

The Education Ministry in Kabul said the promised buses and police guards are part of a larger plan to increase security at schools in regions where students or schools have been attacked.

"It is not only for that school, but for six provinces (where) we have problems with security for girls' education," spokesman Asif Nang said. He said 682 schools countrywide are closed because of security concerns, most of them in the south.

He said plans for guards and buses are awaiting approval for financing, noting the underfinanced ministry faces an immense task in trying to educate the country's youngsters. About 6 million children, including 2 million girls, are in school today. Under the Taliban, fewer than 1 million — mostly boys — attended class.

Calls to police and provincial officials about increased security at Mirwais Mena were not returned.

A sense of wary vigilance pervades the school. Many of the students and teachers refused to let an Associated Press photographer take their pictures — or gave permission only if they could cover their faces.

"You shouldn't show our faces. You will get us in trouble," said a ninth-grader who refused to give her name. "I don't have a name," she said.

One of the acid attack victims, 15-year-old Atifa Bibi Husainai, said she is committed to school because Afghanistan needs more education.

Atifa said she gets threats from the men charged with the attacks. "They are being held by the police, but still they send threats through other people, saying, 'If our men are sentenced we won't let you live.'"

Qaderi said his relatives abroad are constantly warning him he is in danger and he should quit. He says he plans to stay, but worries the girls may start drifting away because of security.

"All these things that I promised to the parents on behalf of the government, they are not happening," he said.

Hamas says it's back in control of the Gaza Strip

By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Bearded Hamas activists on Friday delivered an envelope with five crisp $100 bills to a veiled woman whose house was damaged during Israel's invasion of Gaza, the first of promised relief payments by the militant group.

In another part of the territory, a bulldozer cleared rubble and filled in a bomb crater where a week before a top Hamas leader had been killed in an Israeli air strike.

Since a truce took hold this week, ending Israel's three-week onslaught, Gaza's Hamas rulers have declared victory and gone out of their way to show they are in control.

They have pledged $52 million of the group's funds to help repair lives, the money divvied up by category. The veiled woman received emergency relief money for her two-story home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

Hamas, which is believed to be funded by donations from the Muslim world and Iran, said the emergency relief would include $1,300 for a death in the family, $650 for an injury, $5,200 for a destroyed house and $2,600 for a damaged house.

More than 4,000 houses were destroyed and about 20,000 damaged, according to independent estimates.

"We are in control and we are the winner," Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri declared this week, after attending the funeral of four Hamas gunmen.

But Israeli strikes destroyed all of Hamas' security compounds and most government buildings. Its top two leaders, strongman Mahmoud Zahar and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, have not yet appeared in public.

Israel claims to have killed more than 700 Hamas fighters, while the militants say they lost about 280 armed men, the vast majority members of the police force killed in surprise bombings on the first day of the war.

But beyond the losses, Hamas is wrestling with a fateful choice — whether to keep fighting and drive Gaza deeper into poverty and suffering or moderate in exchange for open borders and a measure of stability.

Gaza had buckled under a tight border closure by Israel and Egypt for 19 months, suffering increasing shortages, and the war only heightened the misery.

On Thursday, hundreds lined up with blue gas canisters along the main north-south road, near the town of Deir el-Balah, after word spread that cooking gas was being distributed.

Hamad Abu Shamla, 24, waited for seven hours, only to leave empty-handed. The unemployed carpenter — he lost his job to the blockade — said he last had cooking gas five months ago, and that he, his wife and four children have mostly been living on canned food and bread since then.

He said he had already promised his family a steaming plate of couscous for lunch, and was sad to return home and disappoint them.

"We build our hopes on God," he said, when asked about his future. "We don't know what to do. We are empty-handed ... and we don't know what to do."

Hamas would need huge sums to fund reconstruction — some $2 billion according to first estimates — but the international community for now refuses to funnel the money directly to the militants.

Yet Hamas has rebuffed proposals that it set up a unity government with its moderate West Bank rivals, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It is also cool to demands that Abbas' troops or foreign border monitors be deployed to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza.

Israel and Egypt, which have kept Gaza's borders closed since Hamas seized the territory by force in June 2007, say they won't open the gates unless Hamas relents.

Before the war, Hamas was able to soften the pain of the blockade because weapons, cash and commercial goods were coming in through hundreds of tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. Israel says the shipments included explosives and rockets Hamas has been firing at southern Israel.

Israel bombed many tunnels during the war, though reporters have seen smugglers resume operating in some and rebuild others.

For now, most Gazans seem to rally behind Hamas, united in their anger at Israel, though there are some murmurs of discontent.

"Hamas fought the Israelis. No one else did," said Samir Summad, 66, whose four-story house was damaged during an air strike last week that killed Said Siam, a top Hamas leader.

At the time, Siam was in the house next door, and the massive bomb flattened the building and dug a deep crater into the sandy ground. On Friday, new cinderblocks were already stacked at the scene and a bulldozer pushed aside the remaining rubble.

Summad would not say whether he resented Siam for putting the neighborhood at risk. Siam was visiting a brother at the time of the strike. "If I had known he was there, I would have run away," said Summad, adding that five of his family members were wounded in the attack.

Summad said a government inspector came to his house to assess damage, including blown-out windows.

Hamas officials say they need open borders to rebuild Gaza. Yet they are evasive about how they hope to lift the blockade without easing their demands.

Hamas officials scoff at the idea of giving a foothold to Abbas, who has been increasingly sidelined, in part because he was perceived by many people as too soft on Israel during the war.

"We have a legitimate government in Gaza that came through democratic choice," said a Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, referring to Hamas crushing victory over Abbas' Fatah movement in 2006 parliament elections.

Yet Hamas is taking a risk by sticking to a hard line that will likely keep Gaza's borders closed. Popular support could erode quickly, since most Gazans have no more reserves to withstand a continued closure.

Even before the war, the vast majority of Gaza's 1.4 million people were poor. The blockade wiped out tens of thousands of job, most factories closed for lack of raw materials and water, power and sewage systems became increasingly erratic.

Shehadeh Shehadeh, 39, a Gaza City pastry chef who learned his trade in Israel a decade ago, said he voted for Hamas in 2006 but said he believes the group must become more pragmatic.

He sold his last black forest cake a month ago and can't bake anymore because he's run out of ingredients available only in Israel. The windows of his apartment were blown out during the war, in an airstrike on the nearby Hamas government complex.

Shehadeh, like many Gazans, would like to see Hamas and Fatah reconcile and wants open borders. "I want to stop and breathe for a bit, and live," he said. "Until when will we keep saying, we want resistance and we want war?"