New Twist in Benghazi Account: Mystery Man with Slain Ambassador

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Photo Credit: WND A four-page incident report written by a private contractor that provided security to the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, adds yet another layer of intrigue to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack.

The report, for the first time, claims that another American aside from Ambassador Christopher Stevens was being treated at the Libyan hospital reportedly controlled by the Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist group.

The American was described in the report by the private Blue Mountain Group as being “black” and shot in the hand. The report says the man was presumed to be “one of the ambassador’s close protection team as both were black.”

The State Department’s Accountability Review Board report, or ARB, detailed what it claimed was the official version of events during and after the attack. The ARB report does not mention any other American at the hospital with Stevens.

The ARB report states only that Stevens’ body was transported from the hospital to the Benghazi airport. The ARB does not describe how Stevens’ body was released from a hospital said to be under Ansar Al-Sharia’s control.

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Pastor Saeed Abedini Reportedly Moved to More Dangerous Prison

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Photo Credit: Fox News The Iranian-American pastor being held in Iran has now been transferred to a more dangerous prison where he faces life-threatening conditions, according to his family and attorneys.

When a member of Saeed Abedini’s family went to visit him at Evin Prison, a facility in Tehran where he has been kept for over a year, he was told that the pastor had been moved about an hour and a half away to Rajai Shahr Prison in the town of Karaj.

The family member then travelled to Rajai Shahr Prison and was told that the pastor is being kept there, but is not permitted to have any visitors, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, the pastor’s U.S.-based attorneys.

According to inside sources, this new prison in Karaj is an even more dangerous facility, where violent prisoners, typically imprisoned for murder and rape, are held.

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John Kerry Smooths Over US-Saudi Tensions on Riyadh Visit

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Photo Credit: Faisal al-Nasser/ReutersJohn Kerry has sought to ease recent tensions between the US and Saudi Arabia, a key strategic ally in the Arab world, highlighting enduring relations between the two countries and hailing the kingdom’s role as “the senior player” in the Middle East.

On a brief visit to Riyadh, the secretary of state said the US would ensure that its relationship with Saudi Arabia was “on track, moving forward and doing the things that we need to accomplish”.

There was much agreement between the two allies on the civil war in Syria, the Iranian nuclear programme and attempts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, also attempted to smooth over recent diplomatic differences, saying: “The fact of the matter is that the historic relationship between the two countries has always been based on independence, mutual respect and constructive co-operation.”

However, he told his US counterpart that “a true relationship between friends is based on sincerity, candour and frankness, rather than mere courtesy”.

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Germany Finds 1,500 Masterpieces Looted by Nazis

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Photo Credit: AFP/John MacdougallNearly 1,500 priceless paintings including works by Picasso and Matisse that were stolen by the Nazis have been discovered in a flat in Munich, a news report said Sunday.

The German weekly Focus said police came upon the paintings during a 2011 search in an apartment belonging to the octogenarian son of art collector Hildebrand Gurlitt, who had bought them during the 1930s and 1940s.

The search was carried out because the son, Cornelius Gurlitt, was under suspicion for tax evasion, Focus said.

The report said the works were thought to be worth around one billion euros ($1.3 billion dollars) on today’s market.

The artworks lay hidden amid old jam jars and junk in darkened rooms in Gurlitt’s apartment in the southern city for more than half a century, the paper said.

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Death by Drone Turns a Villain Into a Martyr

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Photo Credit: A Majeed/AFP/Getty In life, Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, was Public Enemy No. 1: a ruthless figure who devoted his career to bloodshed and mayhem, whom Pakistani pundits occasionally accused of being a pawn of Indian, or even American, intelligence.

But after his death, it seems, Pakistani hearts have grown fonder.

Since missiles fired by American drones killed Mr. Mehsud in his vehicle on Friday, Pakistan’s political leaders have reacted with unusual vehemence. The interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, denounced the strike as sabotage of incipient government peace talks with the Taliban. Media commentators fulminated about American treachery. And the former cricket star Imran Khan, now a politician, renewed his threats to block NATO military supply lines through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa — a province his Tehreek-e-Insaf party controls — with a parliamentary vote scheduled for Monday.

Virtually nobody openly welcomed the demise of Mr. Mehsud, who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistani civilians. To some American security analysts, the furious reaction was another sign of the perversity and ingratitude that they say have scarred Pakistan’s relationship with the United States.

“It’s another stab in the back,” said Bill Roggio, whose website, the Long War Journal, monitors drone strikes. “Even those of us who watch Pakistan closely don’t know where they stand anymore. It’s such a double game.”

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Iran Calls for Continued Use of ‘Death to America’ as Official Slogan

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Photo Credit: EPAThe Revolutionary Guards, the elite Iranian regime’s army, said Saturday they are committed to the slogan “Death to America,” chanted at official ceremonies, just days before the 34th anniversary of the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran.

“The slogan Death to America is the symbol of strength and determination of the Iranian nation against the dominance of the United States, which is an oppressive and untrustworthy nation,” said the Revolutionary Guards on their official website.

In recent weeks, a debate was launched in Iran on the merits of continuing to chant “Death to America ” during official ceremonies, while some relaxation occurred in relations between Tehran and Washington since the election in June of moderate President Hassan Rohani.

“Telephone espionage by the United States government against the people of other countries are proof that you can not trust the leadership of the White House”, the military group said.

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CIA Drone Strike Kills Head of Pakistani Taliban

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Photo Credit: A Majeed/AFP/Getty The CIA’s secret drone campaign claimed one of its highest profile scalps on Friday with the killing of the chief of the Pakistani Taliban by an unmanned aircraft in the country’s lawless tribal areas.

Hakimullah Mehsud, the feared leader of an alliance of militant groups attempting to topple the Pakistani state, was killed when a missile struck a compound in the village near the capital of North Waziristan, according to militant, US and Pakistani sources.

Although his death has been misreported in the past, informants in the tribal area said they were confident one of the country’s most vicious militant leaders was dead.

“He was targeted as he was returning to his home from a nearby mosque where he had been holding discussions with his comrades,” said a military officer based in a city close to the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which is home to many Islamist terrorist groups.

“He was right at his front door and at least three missiles were fired.”

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DHS Plan: Let Libyans Train Here for ‘Flight Operations,’ ‘Nuclear-Related Fields’

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Photo Credit: APA draft regulation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would lift a 30-year-ban on Libyan nationals coming to the United States to work or train in “aviation maintenance, flight operations, or nuclear-related fields.”

The 11-page proposed rule was obtained by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

In a statement on his congressional website, Rep. Chaffetz said that the draft final regulation could take effect without prior notice and comment. The congressmen say the prohibition was put in place in the 1980s after the wave of terrorist incidents involving Libyans.

“The administration justifies lifting this ban by claiming that the United States’ relationship with Libya has been ‘normalized,’” the statement said.

But the congressmen also say, “the terror threat continues and numerous news reports document recent terror-related stories coming from Libya. And just over a year ago the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked, which resulted in the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.”

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Soaring Number Of Cubans Are Entering The United States Through Mexican Border

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Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGESThe easing by the Cuban government of restrictions on traveling abroad has led to a rise in the number of Cubans who try to enter the United States through the Mexican border, the Miami Herald reports.

Undocumented Cubans stopped at the U.S.-Mexican border totaled 2,300 from January through August, more than double the 994 in the same time frame last year, the newspaper says, citing Mexican government figures.

Authorities estimate that roughly 13,000 got to the border undetected between Sept. 2012 and Sept. 2013, the Herald says.

The theory for the rise is that Cubans who make it to the U.S. border benefit from this nation’s “wet-foot-dry-foot” policy, which holds that any Cuban national who puts foot on U.S. soil may stay in the country. Those who are stopped at sea often are repatriated.

Meanwhile, Cuban officials say travel abroad has risen 35 percent since the island’s government loosened restrictions this year.

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Syria Weapons Inspectors Miss Deadline for Visiting All Declared Sites

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Dusan VranicInternational inspectors overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile have missed an early deadline in a brutally tight schedule after security concerns prevented them from visiting two sites linked to Damascus’ chemical program.

The chief of the global chemical weapons watchdog disclosed for the first time in a report obtained by The Associated Press that Syria has declared 41 facilities at 23 chemical sites where it stored approximately 1,300 tons of precursors and agents, and over 1,200 unfilled munitions to deliver them.

Ahmet Uzumcu said in his first report to the U.N. Security Council that inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had corroborated the information provided by Syria at 37 of the 41 facilities.

But the OPCW said inspectors were only able to visit 21 of the 23 sites because of security risks — which means the tight timeline for visiting all declared sites by Oct. 27 was missed.

While there are no consequences for missing the deadline, the group’s failure to meet it underscores the ambitious timeline as well as the risks its inspectors face in carrying out their mission in the middle of Syria’s civil war.

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