More Than 600 US Military Reported Chemical Exposure in Iraq, Pentagon Acknowledges

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Photo Credit: Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency

Photo Credit: Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency

More than 600 American service members since 2003 have reported to military medical staff members that they believe they were exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq, but the Pentagon failed to recognize the scope of the reported cases or offer adequate tracking and treatment to those who may have been injured, defense officials say.

The Pentagon’s disclosure abruptly changed the scale and potential costs of the United States’ encounters with abandoned chemical weapons during the occupation of Iraq, episodes the military had for more than a decade kept from view.

This previously untold chapter of the occupation became public after an investigation by The New York Times revealed last month that although troops did not find an active weapons of mass destruction program, they did encounter degraded chemical weapons from the 1980s that had been hidden in caches or used in makeshift bombs.

The Times initially disclosed 17 cases of American service members who were injured by sarin or a sulfur mustard agent. And since the report was published last month, more service members have come forward, pushing the number who were exposed to chemical agents to more than 25. But an internal review of Pentagon records ordered by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has now uncovered that hundreds of troops told the military they believe they were exposed, officials said.

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Man Calls Daughter’s ‘Rapist’ Home, Tortures and Kills Him, Say Police

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Photo Credit: Free Patriot

Photo Credit: Free Patriot

Furious over the alleged rape of his 14-year-old daughter by a 45-year-old married man, the father called the man to his house on Friday night, treated him to dinner and then tortured him to death, police said. He then went to the police station, surrendered himself and gave police a detailed account on how he tortured and murdered the man.

The 36-year-old reportedly burned the man’s genitals using heated tongs and then strangled him to death. The incident was reported from Northeast Delhi’s Khajuri Khas area on Saturday.

Based on the man’s statement, police said the deceased, a medicine supplier, had allegedly raped the man’s minor daughter two months ago. The father did not approach police fearing “a bad name for his daughter”.

“The father called the medicine supplier over to his house saying he wanted to discuss some issue. He served him dinner. After the meal, the father overpowered the man and tied him to a chair. He got heated tongs and burned the supplier’s genitals before strangling him to death. He came to the police station and surrendered himself,” an officer said.

The father reportedly gave police a detailed account of how he tortured the man to death.

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Islamic Mob Beats, Burns Pregnant Mother and Her Husband

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Pakistani police say they have arrested up to 40 people in connection with the killing of a Christian couple in Punjab province who were beaten, then pushed into a burning kiln after being accused of desecrating the Quran.

Local police officials said a mob from neighboring villages formed Tuesday after a local mullah declared the couple were guilty of blasphemy.

The mob allegedly marched to the couple’s home, broke down their door, dragged them outside, beat them and threw them into the brick kiln where they both worked.

The attack happened in the town of Kot Radha Kishan, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of Lahore, the capital of Punjab. Police officials identified the woman as Shyman Bibi Urf Shamar, and her husband as Sajjad Nasir Zurjah Nazir Nasir.

Rage, grief after killing of Christian couple Rage, grief after killing of Christian couple
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), which dispatched a team to the scene, said in a statement that the couple had three young children — two sons and a daughter, and indicated the slain woman was pregnant.

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Mayor and Wife Arrested in Disappearance of 43 Students

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsFederal police early Tuesday detained the former mayor of the southern Mexican city of Iguala and his wife, who are accused of ordering the Sept. 26 attacks on teachers’ college students that left six dead and 43 still missing.

Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, were arrested in Mexico City without resisting, according to two security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The couple was in the custody of the Attorney General’s Office, where they were giving statements. At least 56 other people have been arrested so far in the case, and the Iguala police chief is still a fugitive.

The couple’s detention could shed light on disappearances, which have prompted outraged demonstrations across the country to demand the students be found. The case forced the resignation of the governor of Guerrero state, where Iguala is located.

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Yazidis Face Genocide by ISIS After U.S. Turns Away

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Photo Credit: GettyIn August, the Obama administration intervened to stop what it called a pending genocide of Yazidi minorities in Iraq. Now the U.S. is gone, but the genocide continues.

Thousands of Yazidis remain stranded and starving on Mount Sinjar while thousands more have been sold off into slavery by ISIS, according to Yazidi leaders, several of whom are in Washington to beg for urgent assistance.

When President Obama announced U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq in early August, he said the mission was twofold: to protect U.S. personnel in Erbil and to save the ethnic Yazidis from ISIS, who had fled from their villages, chased by ISIS, and were stranded on the mountain with no food, no supplies, and no protection.

“People are starving. And children are dying of thirst. Meanwhile, ISIL forces below have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yazidi people, which would constitute genocide,” said Obama. “And when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye. We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide. That’s what we’re doing on that mountain.”

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'I Have to Check Her Teeth': Chilling Footage Shows ISIS Fighters at Slave Girl 'Market' Bartering for Young Women…

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Photo Credit: YouTubeAn unsettling video has emerged purporting to show Islamic State fighters bartering over Yazidi women at a slave girl ‘market’.

The terror organisation recently boasted of enslaving women from the Iraqi ethnic minority, and the men appearing in the clip explain it is ‘slave market day’.

The clip shows the men negotiating the price of the women, with blue and green-eyed young girls fetching a higher price.

It starts with one man saying to the camera: ‘Today is the slave market day. Today is the day where this verse applies: ‘Except with their wives and the (captives) whom their right hands possess, – for (then) they are not too be blamed’.

He added: ‘Today is distribution day God willing. Each one takes his share.’

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Ebola-Hit Sierra Leone Criticizes Canada Over Travel Ban

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Photo Credit: AFP / Carl de SouzaSierra Leone accused Canada on Saturday of discrimination over its decision to suspend visa applications for residents of Ebola-hit nations.

Immigration Canada announced on Friday it would not process applications from individuals who had been in an Ebola-affected nation within the previous three months.

“The government views the decision as discriminatory, coming at a time when we are trying to ease the isolation, and not re-enforce it,” said Theo Nicol, Sierra Leone’s deputy information minister.

Canada’s immigration minister Chris Alexander had described the move as a precautionary measure building on actions “taken to protect the health and safety of Canadians here at home”.

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Palestinian Leader Says White House Insult of Netanyahu Reflects Obama's 'Sincere' Feelings

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Photo Credit: WNDIn a radio interview set to air Sunday, a senior leader of Hamas asserts the anonymous White House officials referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “chickensh-t” reflect the Obama administration’s “sincere” feelings.

The interview with Salah Bardawil, senior Hamas leader and member of the Palestinian Parliament, airs Sunday night on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s AM 970 The Answer.

A recording of the interview was obtained by WND.

Asked for his thoughts on the “chichensh*t” comments, the Hamas strongman told Klein, “It’s not a secret that Obama felt many times disappointed from Mr. Netanyahu. And it’s not a secret that Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy was not acceptable by the administration.”

Continued Bardawil: “The problem is that Obama, in spite of the fact that we feel that these feelings are sincere and true vis-à-vis Netanyahu, he ever translated these emotions against Netanyahu to actions on the ground in order to change the situation … which shows the decision making center is not exclusively in the hands of the president but in the hands of the whole American establishment that judges that Israel is in the strategic interests of the United States. This is why these declarations of the sources in the administration were not translated into changing the situation on the ground into pushing the situation forward but keeping the situation as it is.”

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Boko Haram Leader says Kidnapped Girls Married Off, Converted to Islam

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Photo Credit: APThe leader of Nigerian Islamic extremist group Boko Haram announced in a video released Friday that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls had been married off and converted to Islam, dismissing claims by the Nigerian government that it had agreed to a truce.

“If you knew the state your daughters are in today, it might lead some of you … to die from grief,” Abubakar Shekau sneered, addressing the parents of the girls and young women kidnapped from a remote boarding school more than six months ago.

In the video, the Boko Haram leader also denied there was a cease-fire with the Nigerian government.

“A lie,” Mr. Shekau said, according to The Wall Street Journal. The girls, he claimed, had now been married off and converted to Islam. “They have now memorized two chapters of the Quran.”

“In this war, there is no going back,” he said in the video received by The Associated Press in the same way as previous messages.

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Mexico Police Questioned in Killing of 3 Americans

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Authorities were investigating on Friday a possible police connection to the killing of three U.S. citizens visiting their father in Mexico who were found shot to death along with a Mexican friend more than two weeks after going missing.

Parents of the three siblings, whose bodies were identified Thursday, have said witnesses reported they were seized by men dressed in police gear calling themselves “Hercules,” a tactical security unit in the violent border city of Matamoros wracked by cartel infighting. Nine of the unit’s 40 officers are being questioned, Tamaulipas state Attorney General Ismael Quintanilla Acosta said.

It would be the third recent case of alleged abuse and killings by Mexican security forces.

The country is already convulsed by the case of 43 students from a teachers college in the southern state of Guerrero, their disappearance blamed on a mayor and police working with a drug cartel. Fifty-six people are under arrest, including dozens of police officers.

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