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.