Parole for Soldier Convicted of Killing Al-Qaida Operative

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Photo Credit: WNDA U.S. soldier convicted of killing an al-Qaida operative in Iraq in a trial marked by the prosecution’s decision to withhold exculpatory evidence has been granted parole.

The announcement comes from Scott and Vicki Behenna, who established the Defend Michael website on behalf of their son, Michael Behenna.

The parents said they had been notified that their son will be released from Ft. Leavenworth on March 14. He will have served five years of a 15-year sentence for the death of al-Qaida operative Ali Mansur in Iraq in 2008.

“With tears of joy in our eyes we are happy to tell all of you that Michael is coming home! … It has been, to say the least, quite a ride,” the parents said a statement posted online Wednesday.

“Michael signed up for the Army in order to serve his country and honor the innocent people killed on 9/11. As a lieutenant he led his men in the ‘Mad Dog’ 5th Platoon into combat in Iraq and with them bravely faced a determined and ruthless insurgency. Then his story took a bizarre turn when he was charged and later convicted of killing a known al-Qaida cell leader who was directly involved in an IED attack that killed two of his soldiers, Steven Christofferson and Adam Kohlhaas,” they wrote.

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Karzai: Afghan Release of Dangerous Militants ‘of No Concern to U.S.’ (+video)

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Photo Credit; APLess than a year after Secretary of State John Kerry expressed “great confidence” that U.S. interests would be protected regarding Afghan prisoners, President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that his government’s decisions on prisoner releases are “of no concern to the U.S., and should be of no concern to the U.S.”

The U.S. military regards some of the dozens of prisoners released by Afghan authorities on Thursday as dangerous militants and killers and warns they will return to the battlefield.

“Afghanistan is a sovereign country,” Karzai told reporters in a joint press appearance in Ankara with Turkish and Pakistani leaders. “If the Afghan judicial authorities decide to release a prisoner, it is of no concern to the U.S., and should be of no concern to the U.S.”

Karzai said he hoped the U.S. would “stop harassing” Afghanistan’s judicial authorities. “I hope the United States will now begin to respect Afghan sovereignty.”

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Report: New Navy Map Shows U.S. Had ‘Multitude of Forces’ in Region Surrounding Libya During Benghazi Attack

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Photo Credit: Screengrab via TownhallGovernment watchdog group Judicial Watch published a U.S. Navy map on Wednesday showing the locations of ships in the region surrounding Libya on the night of the deadly Benghazi Attack.

The unclassified map was obtained by Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Randall R. Schmidt via a Freedom of Information of Act (FOIA) request. Schmidt is reportedly investigating the U.S. military’s response to the Benghazi attack and provided a copy of the map to the group.

“The U.S. military had a multitude of forces in the region surrounding Libya when terrorists attacked the Special Mission in Benghazi and murdered four Americans,” Judicial Watch writes.

“Destroyers could have responded to the attack,” Schmidt said.

He also said the military had “rapid reaction forces” and “armed predators” in the region. So far, the Department of Defense has refused to provide him records on the air fleet on Sept. 11, 2012.

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China Flexes Its Muscles In U.S.-Led Military Exercises

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Photo Credit: Itsuo InouyeThe U.S. is leading the largest multinational military exercise in the Asia-Pacific region, and Chinese media are hailing Beijing’s first-time participation in the annual drill as proof that the communist nation’s “regional military impact” cannot be ignored.

Nearly 14,000 troops from the U.S. and Asia-Pacific countries are participating in Cobra Gold 2014, which opened Tuesday at Camp Akatosarot, about 230 miles north of Bangkok.

“Cobra Gold truly replicates the dynamic security environment we find ourselves in today, and what we will face in the future,” Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said at the opening ceremony for the military exercise.

About 9,000 U.S. troops are training alongside 4,000 from Thailand, 80 from Singapore, 120 from Japan, 300 from South Korea, 160 from Indonesia and 120 from Malaysia.

Several other nations such as Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar are participating as observers in the 33rd annual drills.

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Belgium Set to Extend Right-To-Die Law to Children

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Photo Credit: Reuters Belgium, one of the very few countries where euthanasia is legal, is expected to take the unprecedented step this week of abolishing age restrictions on who can ask to be put to death — extending the right to children for the first time.

The legislation appears to have wide support in the largely liberal country. But it has also aroused intense opposition from foes — including a list of pediatricians — and everyday people who have staged noisy street protests, fearing that vulnerable children will be talked into making a final, irreversible choice.

Backers like Dr. Gerland van Berlaer, a prominent Brussels pediatrician, believe it is the merciful thing to do. The law will be specific enough that it will only apply to the handful of teenage boys and girls who are in advanced stages of cancer or other terminal illnesses and suffering unbearable pain, he said.

Under current law, they must let nature take its course or wait until they turn 18 and can ask to be euthanized.

“We are talking about children that are really at the end of their life. It’s not that they have months or years to go. Their life will end anyway,” said Van Berlaer, chief of clinic in the pediatric critical care unit of University Hospital Brussels. “The question they ask us is: ‘Don’t make me go in a terrible, horrifying way, let me go now while I am still a human being and while I still have my dignity.'”

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Sinking Feeling: Iranian Navy Sends Message with US-Bound ‘Rust Buckets’

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Photo Credit: FARS News AgencyThe two Iranian warships headed toward U.S. waters — one of which barely survived a 1988 run-in with an American fighter jet — are a pair of “rust buckets” Tehran is using to prove to its people it can project power around the globe, naval experts said.

The commander of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet said the ships — the frigate Sabalan and Kharg, a supply ship capable of carrying helicopters — began their trip last month from the southern port city Bandar Abbas. Adm. Afshin Rezayee Haddad said the vessels had already entered the Atlantic Ocean near South Africa en route to U.S. maritime borders as part of a three-month mission. Haddad characterized the move as a response to the ongoing presence of the U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet, which is based in Bahrain, across the Persian Gulf.

But the British-built ships, which are reportedly carrying roughly 30 Iranian Navy academy cadets, are not militarily imposing, according to defense experts reached by FoxNews.com.

“From a tactical perspective, neither one of these ships are any good; they are an afterthought to the U.S. Navy from a warfare perspective,” said Christopher Harmer, senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “From a strategic standpoint, they are very important.”

In 1988, the 310-foot Sabalan was attacked by American forces after it fired upon an A-6 Intruder aboard the USS Enterprise following tensions in the Persian Gulf. The Iranian ship was completely decimated but did not sink, ultimately being restored and improved — something not lost on the Iranian powers, Harmer said.

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Obama Admin Pressed for Lifting Sanctions on Iranian Broadcaster Involved in Human Rights Abuses

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Photo Credit: AlgemeinerWatchdog group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) on Tuesday called on the Obama Administration to reconsider its decision to lift sanctions on Iran’s state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), which had been punished for its involvement in the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses. Among other offenses IRIB has jammed foreign broadcasts, televised forced confessions and broadcast show trials of political prisoners.

UANI said that while the U.S. and world powers agreed in November to lift sanctions tied to Iran’s economy in exchange for the regime allowing increased access to its nuclear facilities, they also agreed to maintain sanctions on areas tied to human rights abuses, and should stay that course.

“We urge the Obama administration to reconsider its decision to waive sanctions on IRIB,” said Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, UANI’s CEO. “The administration repeatedly pledged that the sanctions relief it granted Iran would not include those sanctions related to human rights. It must now uphold those promises, and maintain sanctions on IRIB given IRIB’s continued role in facilitating human rights abuses in Iran.”

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Iran Test-Fires Long-Range Missile

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Denis BalibouseIran’s military has successfully test-fired two new domestically made missiles, the defense minister said on Monday according to state television, ahead of talks with world powers to try to reach an agreement on curbing Tehran’s nuclear program.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said one of them was a long-range ballistic missile with radar-evading capabilities.

“The new generation of long-range ground-to-ground ballistic missile with a fragmentation warhead and the laser-guided air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missile dubbed Bina (Insightful) have been successfully test-fired,” state television quoted him as saying.

“The Bina missile is capable of striking important targets such as bridges, tanks and enemy command centers with great precision.”

Iran already has long-range surface-to-surface Shahab missiles with a range of about 2,000 km (1,250 miles) that are capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military bases in the Middle East. However, analysts have challenged some of Iran’s military assertions, saying it often exaggerates its capabilities.

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Silent Death from Above: Sudan Steps Up Use of Parachute Bombs on People

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Photo Credit: NUBAREPORTS.ORGThe people of war-torn Sudan learned long ago to take cover when planes roared overhead, but the latest tactic being used on them — parachute bombs — is raining silent death down on innocent villagers, say alarmed activists.

The country’s extremist Islamic regime in Khartoum has stepped up the practice in the Nuba Mountains, dropping deadly bombs by parachute from high altitudes as president and accused international war criminal Omar al-Bashir seeks to rout rebel forces opposed to his brand of radical Islam.

In recent years, the Nuba Mountains, where Christians and Muslims live side by side, have become a battleground for the forces of al-Bashir’s forces and the Sudanese People Liberation Army.

Caught in the crossfire are innocent civilians, especially children, who live in the mountainous region just north of the border of Sudan and South Sudan, the nation carved out of Sudan in 2011.

“Children living in the Nuba Mountains grew up amid almost daily aerial bombardment,” Akshaya Kumar, a Sudan and South Sudan policy analyst with the Center for American Progress, told FoxNews.com. “They have learned how to quickly duck into makeshift bomb shelters when they hear a bomb dropping.

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Cold War Echoes: Sochi Not Thawing US-Russian Relations

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Photo Credit: APThe Olympic Games, created to bring countries together around sports, appear to be having the opposite effect on U.S.-Russia relations.

Rising animosity between the former Cold War powers was on full display Friday when Russia chose a former figure skater who tweeted out a racially charged picture of President Obama for the symbolic lighting of the Olympic cauldron…

To be sure, there are hard feelings in Russia toward the U.S. and the Obama administration, too.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped hosting the first Games since the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which the U.S. boycotted, would showcase a “new Russia” emerging from the ashes of the Soviet Union as he enters his 15th year in power.

Instead the U.S. and its western allies have consistently painted the picture of a corrupt autocracy.

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