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Famed Navy SEAL Chris Kyle Murdered at Gun Range in N. Texas

Photo Credit: G Laury PhotographyGLEN ROSE, Texas — A former U.S. Navy SEAL who gained recognition during the Iraq War was one of two people fatally shot southwest of Fort Worth on Saturday, KHOU 11 News has learned.

Sources close to the investigation identified the former SEAL as Chris Kyle, 39, author of the New York Times bestselling book, “American Sniper.”

Kyle was shot point-blank while helping another soldier who was recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome, officials said. The murders happened at a shooting range near the town of Glen Rose, about 53 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

The Erath County Sheriff’s Office issued an alert for the arrest of the suspect, who was later identified as Eddie Routh, 25. Officials warned that Routh was traveling in a Ford F-150 pickup with large tires and rims. They said he was believed to be highly trained with military experience.

Routh was reportedly later captured in Lancaster, south of Dallas.

Read more from this story HERE.

Navy SEAL Killed in Rescue of American Doctor in Afghanistan

photo credit: usnavy

A U.S. Navy SEAL was killed early Sunday in the rescue of an American doctor who was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan, defense officials tell NBC News.

The Navy SEAL was wounded in the rescue operation and later died, according to a senior defense official.

The rescue operation was launched when coalition forces reported that Dr. Dilip Joseph was in imminent danger. Joseph, who worked with the non-profit Morning Star Development of Colorado Springs, was kidnapped Wednesday along with two Afghan staff members — one is part of the medical team, the other part of the support team. Joseph has been the non-profit’s medical adviser for three years.

Morning Star said the team of three had been returning from a visit to one of its rural medical clinics when the kidnappers stopped their vehicle. The three were then taken to a mountainous area about 50 miles from the Pakistan border, Morning Star said.

Contact between the hostages, their captors and the non-profit’s crisis management team started immediately, according to a statement on Morning Star’s website. On Saturday evening, two of the hostages were released. The two men then made their way out of the area and were taken to a police station.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mother of SEAL: ‘I Believe that Obama Murdered My Son’

photo credit: roberthuffstutterA father and a mother used the word “murder.” A brother said he won’t second-guess decisions made in the heat of battle.

The families of three Americans killed in the Sept. 11 U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya, are offering widely different reactions to recent reports that U.S. personnel issued several requests for help that were turned down.

Patricia Smith, the mother of slain State Department employee Sean Patrick Smith, is now blaming President Barack Obama for her son’s death.

“I believe that Obama murdered my son,” she said Thursday from the living room of her Clairemont home. “I firmly believe this.”

Patricia Smith, who voted for Obama in 2008 at the insistence of her son, said reporting by Fox News is the basis for much of her belief that Obama is ultimately responsible for her son’s death. She said Sean, who went to Mission Bay High School but lived abroad, was a fervent supporter of the president.

Read more from this story HERE.

Jihadists Call for Alaskan Navy SEAL’s Murder; His New Book Slams Obama for Taking Credit for bin Laden Hit

Bin Laden apparently was hit in the head when he looked out of his bedroom door into the top-floor hallway of his compound as SEALs rushed up a narrow stairwell in his direction, according to former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen in “No Easy Day.” The book is to be published next week by Penguin Group (USA)’s Dutton imprint.

Bissonnette says he was directly behind a “point man” going up the stairs. “Less than five steps” from top of the stairs, he heard “suppressed” gunfire: “BOP. BOP.” The point man had seen a “man peeking out of the door” on the right side of the hallway.

The author writes that bin Laden ducked back into his bedroom and the SEALs followed, only to find the terrorist crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole visible on the right side of his head and two women wailing over his body.

Bissonnette says the point man pulled the two women out of the way and shoved them into a corner and he and the other SEALs trained their guns’ laser sites on bin Laden’s still-twitching body, shooting him several times until he lay motionless. The SEALs later found two weapons stored by the doorway, untouched, the author said.

Read more from this story HERE and Bissonnette’s statement that the Navy Seals knew Obama would improperly take credit for the raid. They feared he might be reelected as a result. Also, Jihadists have published Bissonnette’s photo and demanded his killing since Fox News disclosed his identity.

Alaskan Navy Seal who wrote book on bin Laden killing identified, faces likely probe

On Wednesday this week, Reuters reported that a Navy Seal had written a book about the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. The book, entitled “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden,” was written by a former Seal Team Six member under the pseudonym of “Mark Owen” along with co-author Kevin Maurer. The publisher states that it will be released on 9/11.

According to Reuters:

The U.S. government was surprised by the news that a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan has written a book about the operation in which the al Qaeda leader was killed, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. . . It was not vetted by government agencies to ensure that no secrets were revealed.

The agencies not consulted included the Pentagon and the CIA. The publisher, Dutton of the U.S. Penguin Group, responded:

The book was vetted by a former special operations attorney. He vetted it for tactical, technical, and procedural information as well as information that could be considered classified by compilation and found it to be without risk to national security.

After a bit of sleuthing, Fox News discovered that the author was part of the elite team that killed three Somalian pirates who had taken control of an American vessel in the Indian Ocean in 2009, and that

“Mark Owen,” the pseudonym under which the book was written, is actually 35 year-old Matt Bissonnette of Wrangell, Alaska. Bissonnette held the rank of chief in the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 prior to retiring. He was one of the first men in the room where bin Laden died, witnessing the occurrence first-hand.

Some have called Fox’s decision to publicize Bissonnette’s name and location “astonishing” as it most certainly puts the former Navy Seal at risk of reprisal by Islamic fanatics.  Fox disagreed, noting that anyone who publishes such a book loses any reasonable expectation of privacy.  The network also contended that Bissonnette’s goal is to publicly confront Obama for “taking credit” for the raid, since he had cited the need to “set the record straight.”

It now appears that Obama may be attempting to preempt this confrontation. According to Reuters, Bissonnette is likely to face a Department of Defense probe over his failure to have the book “cleared” prior to publication:

Colonel Tim Nye, spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, which directs operations by Navy SEALs and other special operations forces, said on Thursday that SOCOM did not review the book before publication, nor had the SEALs.

Nye said that because the book had not been subjected to appropriate pre-publication review, it could become a target of “potential investigation” by government authorities.

Unfortunately for Obama, “any such inquiry was unlikely to be launched until after the book’s publication, scheduled for the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.”