MEXICO CITY, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Twelve Mexican federal police have been detained in an investigation of how two U.S. Embassy employees were wounded after being caught up in a police chase on the outskirts of the capital, authorities said on Monday.
Attorney General Marisela Morales said a judge had ordered the officers remain in custody for 40 days. They have not been charged with any offense in Friday's incident but she said prosecutors were looking into possible abuse of authority.
"We are not ruling out any kind of wrongdoing or any line of investigation," Morales told reporters. "We are asking for them to be detained so that we have the time necessary to conduct an exhaustive investigation."
Officials said on Friday police fired on the embassy workers' vehicle, which had diplomatic license plates, after the driver veered out of the way when he saw the officers' weapons.
The latest incident took place on a highway on the southern outskirts of Mexico City close to the city of Cuernavaca, which has been ravaged by criminal gangs during the government's conflict with drug cartels.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Insurgents beheaded 17 civilians in a Taliban-controlled area of southern Afghanistan, apparently because they attended a dance party that flouted the extreme brand of Islam embraced by the militants, officials said Monday.
The killings, in a district where U.S. Marines have battled the Taliban for years, were a reminder of how much power the insurgent group still wields in the south — particularly as international forces draw down and hand areas over to Afghan forces.
The victims were part of a large group that had gathered late Sunday in Helmand province's Musa Qala district for a celebration involving music and dancing, said district government chief Neyamatullah Khan. He said the Taliban slaughtered them to show their disapproval of the event.
All of the bodies were decapitated but it was not clear if they had been shot first, said provincial government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi.
Information was only trickling out slowly because the area where the killings occurred is largely Taliban controlled, Khan said. The Taliban spokesman for southern Afghanistan could not be reached for comment.
Chaos In Guadalajara As It Experiences A Surge In Violence
Sunday, August 26, 2012 | Borderland Beat ReporterChivis
Borderland Beat
Gunmen created narco blockadesblocking highways throughout Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city. On Saturdayvehicles were set on fire amid a surge in drug-war violence.
Though no official information has been released, information is flowing through Twitter and other social networks.Reports of large groups and convoys of heavily armed masked men were conducting shootings, blockades and terrorizing people throughout Jalisco.
Reports from: Guadalajara, Zapopan, Guzman, Tuxucca, Tlaquepaque, Tonila and Tlajomulco among other cities involved.
Police confirmed seven unauthorized roadblocks constructed with charred, smoldering cars and trucks within the Guadalajara city limits and 15 others in the surrounding Jalisco .
Six were reportedly killed on Saturday. others seriously wounded by gunfire, but no arrests had been made.
Luis Carlos Najera, police chief for Jalisco state, told reporters"We don't know who is behind this operation," he said.
Guadalajara has not seen the level of drug cartel-related violence as other areas, but similar flaming roadblocks shook the city in early March as military forces successfully sought to arrest a prominent cartel leader.
Jalisco state has been a stronghold of the Sinaloa Cartel since the 1980s, when traffickers first started to use Mexico as a "trampoline" to bounce cocaine into the United States.
It has recently seen an upsurge in violence as Sinaloa Cartel gunmen battle rivals from the Zetas cartel, which is displacing older trafficking groups in many parts of Mexico.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A CIA drone strike in Pakistan may have killed the operational commander of the Haqqani network, the insurgent group behind some of the most high-profile attacks on Western and Afghan government targets in Afghanistan, Pakistani intelligence officials and militant sources said on Saturday.
The officials said Badruddin Haqqani, who is also believed to handle the network's vital business interests and smuggling operations, may have been killed during a drone strike this week in Pakistan's tribal North Waziristan region.
One senior Pakistani intelligence official said Badruddin had fled a compound that he and other militants were in after it was hit by a missile, then was killed by a second drone strike on a car that he was in.
There was no official word on Badruddin's fate from the Haqqani network. Other intelligence officials were more cautious.
"The Lone Wolf kills 25 on tuesday but misses the mark"!
on Friday his second missile hits the mark.
"Our informers have told us that he has been killed in the drone attack on the 21st but we cannot confirm it," said one of the Pakistani intelligence officials.
If Badruddin's death is confirmed, it could deal a major blow to the Haqqanis, one of the United States's most feared enemies in Afghanistan.
The Haqqanis are the most experienced fighters in Afghanistan and the loss of one of the group's most important leaders could ease pressure on NATO as it prepares to withdraw most of its combat troops at the end of 2014.
"We are 90 percent sure that he was in the same house which was attacked with a drone on Tuesday," said another Pakistani intelligence official.
Sources close to the Haqqqani network also said Badruddin was believed to be in the house, hit by a drone strike as militants were planting explosives in a vehicle meant to be used for an attack on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
"The drone fired two missiles on the house last Tuesday and killed 25 people, most of them members of the Haqqani family," one of the sources said.
Pakistani Taliban and tribal sources said they believed Badruddin was killed in the drone attack.
One of Badruddin's relatives said he was alive and busy with his "jihad activities".
"Such claims are baseless," he told Reuters. Another relative told Reuters Badruddin is "alive and well".
Afghanistan's Taliban movement, allies of the Haqqani network, said Badruddin was alive.
The Mexican government confirmed Wednesday that it had authorized the use of U.S. drones to collect intelligence on several occasions, a new sign of the two countries’ intensifying cooperation against the drug cartels threatening Mexico.
The statement from Mexico’s presidential office said the drones had been requested for “specific occasions and events” and had been operated under the supervision of its government.
Lone Wolf unarmed in mexico "so they say"
Watches like "A Hawk on Crack"
But until now, the flights were secret, apparently out of concern about a possible backlash in Mexico. Mexican politicians and the public have historically been highly sensitive to U.S. involvement in the country.
The use of the drones was first reported by the New York Times, which said the Pentagon began sending high-altitude, unarmed drones deep into Mexico last month.
The Mexican government statement did not specify which U.S. agency was running the drones, and presidential spokesman Alejandro Poire did not return a call for comment.
The U.S. government has flown drones on the American side of the border for years. American officials have publicly hinted that the United States shares information from those flights with Mexico. Those drones are operated by the Department of Homeland Security.
On Wednesday, asked about the latest disclosure, one senior U.S. official said: “It’s been a process of cooperation over time, and so some suggestion that this is 10 days old wouldn’t be accurate.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The Pentagon referred calls to the Mexican government.
The U.S. and Mexican governments have rapidly expanded their cooperation in recent years against cartels that have been waging a ferocious war for control of drug markets and routes in Mexico. More than 35,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against the cartels in 2006.
Some Mexican opposition politicians lashed out at the government for the secret drone flights.
“There are constitutional regulations that have to do with Mexican airspace,” Rosario Green, a former foreign minister and a senator from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, told the newspaper Reforma. “If there is nothing to hide, why not debate it in Congress, which at the end of the day has a lot to do with maintaining our national sovereignty?”
The brother of a Navy veteran shot by a deputy in her own backyard wants the sheriff's department to admit its mistake and take responsibility for the incident.
Jennifer Orey, 36, was shot Sunday in a surprise encounter with two sheriff's deputies who were searching for a man reportedly in the area wearing a ski mask, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Orey was in her pajamas in her yard around 10:30 p.m. because she heard noises and thought it was her ex-husband, the newspaper reports.
Sheriff Gore
Orey and Deputy Luke Berhalter came in contact and the officer's firearm discharged at point-blank range, her brother James Morgan told local Fox 5 News.
"He fired without warning, saying freeze, or anything. Then just as she saw the black smoke coming out the barrel she turned her body," Morgan said. "The bullet went through her chest and her left nipple, into her shoulder and out her pinkie."
The deputy reportedly told her, "I'm sorry, you startled me," Morgan told the television station.
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore told local 10News the deputies thought Orey's open gate looked suspicious, so they entered the backyard. When deputies ran into the woman, Berhalter had a "spontaneous reaction."
Berhalter, a San Diego County deputy for 21 months after seven years with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, has been placed on leave. The case has been handed over to the local prosecuting attorney for review.
Orey, whose family told the newspaper she was the first woman in the Navy to earn her wings of gold as a search and rescue swimmer, was released from hospital.
But still her brother wants answers.
"I feel they are trying to cover up their mistakes," Morgan told Fox 5 News. "They know the truth. They just don't want to admit it. All we want is for them to own up to their mistake and be responsible just like anybody else."
Jennifer Vasilakos (Jennifer Vasilakos)
A woman who helped a lost man ended up with a surprise $20,000 gift.
That's what happened last month when Jennifer Vasilakos guided Ty Warner when he stopped and asked for driving directions in Santa Barbara, Calif.
While Warner didn't know exactly how to get to where he was going, Vasilakos didn't realize who she was helping.
Warner is the billionaire founder of Ty Inc., the Beanie Baby company.
Vasilakos was at the intersection trying to raise $20,000 for a stem cell procedure she needs to help save her life because she suffers from kidney failure and does not qualify for a transplant.
She describes their encounter in her blog:
He was true to his word. Vasilakos, an herbalist and Reiki teacher, received a package on July 16 with a $20,000 check and with a handwritten note from Warner. The note read in part, "Someone up there loves you because I was guided to meet you Saturday. I never lose my way, but fate had me lost and ask you for directions. The rest of the story I hope will be a wonderful new life for you." Courtesty of Jennifer Vasilakos
"Of course I started crying, because that's what girls do," Vasilakos said. "I'm incredibly thankful to Ty Warner and to everyone who has supported me with love and prayer."
The check cleared a few weeks later and she booked a surgical procedure at an undisclosed foreign hospital to begin hematopoietic stem celltreatment. Hematopietic treatment takes a cell from the blood or bone marrow that can renew itself and develop into a variety of specialized cells.
"After I serendipitously met Jennifer, I further educated myself on her stem cell needs. I was shocked that this particular type of treatment wasn't available to her in the U.S.," Warner said in a media release. "My hope is that we can bring this lifesaving treatment to the forefront so that it can become more readily available and provide alternatives for people like Jennifer."
So the chance meeting allowed both Warner and Vasilakos to each continue on their journeys.
MEXICO CITY, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Twelve Mexican federal police have been detained in an investigation of how two U.S. Embassy employees were wounded after being caught up in a police chase on the outskirts of the capital, authorities said on Monday.
Sunday, August 26, 2012 | 
